CHAPTER III

A SHOE AND A SURPRISE


"What do you mean by that?" asked Frank. "If he had reached the old
house first, he would have waited here for us, wouldn't he?"

"Look what's here," Ned replied. "There has been a fight in the room.
The combatants fought from the inner wall to the window, then a knife
was used. These stains are by no means fresh, but they tell the story.
And to think that we've been here all these days and never found them!"

"Well," Frank hastened to say, "we weren't suspicious; and, then, we had
no occasion to visit this room."

"We should have been on our guard," Ned replied, "but there is no help
for it now. This discovery may block our going on to Peking to-night."

"I don't see why," Jack said, in a disappointed tone.

"If the man who was wounded here and carried out of the window," Ned
replied, "is really the messenger we are waiting for, we ought not to go
away and leave him in the hands of the enemy. It may not be the one I
fear it is, but we ought to find out about that."

"It might have been only natives fighting," urged Jack.

"Of course," Ned insisted, "but we ought not to leave if there is any