“Cut it out?” laughed Jack Bosworth, “why, kid, we’ve just got to the land of promise!”

“Most all promise!” replied Jimmie.  “We’ve got nothin’ but promises since we’ve been here.  Where’s that Secret Service feller that was goin’ to set the pace for us?”

“Perhaps he’s lost in the jungle,” laughed Frank Shaw.  “He certainly ought to have been here three days ago.  What about it, Gulf of Pechili and the Peiho river Ned?” he added, turning to a youth who lay at his side, almost shivering in spite of his shaggy burlap covering.

Ned Nestor yawned and threw aside his alleged protection from the growing chill of the October day.  The boys, fresh from a submarine in which they had searched an ocean floor for important documents as well as millions of dollars in gold, had arrived at Taku five days before this autumn afternoon.

After concluding the mission on the submarine, Ned had been invited to undertake a difficult errand to Peking, in the interest of the United States Secret Service.  Even after landing at Taku, he had confessed to his chums his utter ignorance of the work he was to do.

He had been requested by the Secret Service man who had engaged him for the duty to wait for instructions at the old house on the water front which, in company with Frank, Jack, and Jimmie, he now occupied.  The house was old and dilapidated, seemingly having been unoccupied for years, so the lads were really “camping out” there.

Their provisions were brought to them regularly by a Chinaman who did not seem to understand a word of English, and, as the boys knowledge of the Chinese tongue was exceedingly limited, no information had been gained from him.  The Secret Service man had not appeared, and Ned was becoming uneasy, especially as the curiosity of his neighbors was becoming annoying.

“I guess this is a stall,” Jimmie grumbled, as Ned arose and stood at his side.  “You know how the Moores, father an’ son, tried to get us on the submarine?  Well, I’ll bet they’ve got loose, an’ that we’re bein’ kept here until they can do us up proper without attractin’ the attention of the European population.”

Ned laughed at the boy’s fears.  He had no doubt that the man who had promised to meet him there had been delayed in some unaccountable manner, and that the information he was awaiting would be supplied before another day had passed.

“Anyway,” Jimmie insisted, “I don’t like the looks of things hereabouts!  There’s always some pigtailed Chink watchin’ this house from the street.  I woke up last night an’ saw a snaky-eyed Celestial peering in at this window.  I guess they’ve got rid of the man we are waitin’ for.”

“If we only knew exactly what we were to do in Peking,” Frank said, approaching the little group by the window, “we might jog along and report to the American legation.  I’m like Jimmie.  I don’t fancy this long wait here—­not a little bit!”