ightened to
take the machines with them, but the mob got them. They were taken by
individual thieves, and will soon be restored."

"We ought to have come over in our aeroplane," smiled Frank.

"That would have defeated our purpose," Ned replied. "We are here to
catch the leaders of this conspiracy, and the only way we can do it is
to wait until they show themselves.

"Just see how foolish they are!" Ned went on. "If they had been content
to wait, to manufacture such evidence as they needed to show their
innocence, we could never have located them. They would have lied us
out of countenance if we charged any one man with being the leader, or
any one nation with fostering the conspiracy.

"But they tried to make a clean record for themselves by wiping us off
the face of the earth and so showed themselves to us. I am told by
police officers that if criminals would keep away from women, away from
the scenes of their crimes, and keep their mouths shut when given the
famous--and disgraceful--third degree, not one in twenty would ever be
convicted."

"Well," Frank said, "here's hoping that the man we want will come within
reach again!"

After breakfast the boys headed for the American consulate, where they
found the machines which had been stolen.

"That was quick work," Ned congratulated. "How did you do it?"

The consul laughed.

"Why," he replied, "you might as well try to bide a fifty story building
in China as one of those machines! The natives believe the devil is in
them!"

"I've known Americans to express the same opinion," laughed Frank.

While they talked with the consul a message was brought him from the
telegraph office. It read:

"Report progress."

Ned laughed.

"Nothing to report but disaster," he said.

"Well," the consul replied, "we expected something of the kind. You
have gained the very point we expected you to gain. You know exactly
who is at the head of this mess. Thinking he had you where you would
never get away, he talked too much."

"I think I should know him in any disguise," Ned said. "I should know
him anywhere, and under any circumstances. Do you think he would have
kept faith with me if I had given up the documents and promised never to
implicate either his country or himself in the trouble?"

"Certainly not. The fact that he revealed himself to you shows that he
meant to have you murdered there. Only for the marines breaking in just
as they did, it would hav