"Looked to me like he would enjoy feeding Jack and Frank to the rats."

"Then he understood, all right?"

"Of course he did," Jack, answered. "I could see that with one eye.
He's been coming here with his grub for four days, and picking up a word
here and there every time. We ought to have had sense enough to have
been on guard against such treachery."

"What's the answer now?" asked Jimmie, turning to Ned.

"I'm afraid we're in a bad predicament," Ned replied. "This shows me
new light. The messenger we are expecting should have been here long
ago, and I'm now sure that we've just got to do something. I'm getting
afraid to eat the food they bring us, and I lie awake at night,
listening for hostile footsteps."

"That sounds a little more like Manhattan!" Jack cried. "Sounds like
action! We're off in a heathen land, surrounded by enemies, and not
likely to get anything like a fighting chance, but I'm for doing
something right now. I'm not going to lie still here and be poisoned,
like a rat in a sewer!"

"I'm for going on to Peking," Frank said. "We can report to the
American ambassador there, and, at least, get something to eat besides
rat pie and something better than a bare floor to sleep on. If we only
had the Black Bear, the motor boat we cruised with on the Columbia
river, we wouldn't be long on the way."

"Huh!" Jimmie observed, taking out a minute memorandum book, "it is