understand without being told here that it was a very fine clubroom
upon which the frosty blue eyes of the Secret Service man looked.

The walls were adorned with all manner of hunting and fishing
paraphernalia, together with many trophies of the chase. Foils,
gloves, ball bats, paddles and many other athletic aids were scattered
about the large room.

This clubroom, that of the Black Bear Patrol, as has been said, was
the handsomest in New York, the members of the Patrol being sons of
very wealthy men. The father of Frank Shaw was editor and owner of one
of the important daily newspapers of the metropolis. Jack Bosworth's
father was a prominent corporation lawyer, while Harry Stevens, a lad
with a historical hobby, was a prominent automobile manufacturer.

Ned Nestor, the boy just now trying to entertain the very formal
Captain Moore, was a member of the Wolf Patrol, also of New York, as
was also Jimmie McGraw, who had been a Bowery newsboy before joining
fortunes with Ned.

As is well known to most of our readers, Ned had, at one time and
another, undertaken and successfully accomplished delicate and
hazardous enterprises for the United States Government. Accompanied by
Frank, Jack, Jimmie, Harry, and other members of the Boy Scout Patrols
of the United States, he had visited Mexico, the Canal Zone, the
Philippines, the Great Northwest, had navigated the Columbia river in
a motor boat, and had covered the continent of South America in an
aeroplane.

He was now about to enter upon, perhaps, the most important mission