scuffling of feet. Then next instant the boy
was pushed back through the doorway.

"What is the trouble?" asked the marine of the assistant, whose flushed
face showed in the half-open doorway.

"You'll all have to be identified before you can leave here," was the
curt reply. "You have asked for important state dispatches, and we want
to know what your motive is."

"My motive is to get them," replied Ned, coolly.

"Wait until you prove your right to them," said the other, and the door
was slammed shut. Ned stepped back to the window and looked out into
the court. The walls were four stories high, and there seemed to be no
passage out of the box-like place. The officer suggested that he force
his way through the outer office and reach the American consul, but Ned
did not approve of this. He thought there must be some other way. Then
a hint of that other way came from the court in the call of an owl.

"That's a Boy Scout signal, and not a bird!" almost shouted Jimmie.

CHAPTER VIII

THE MESSAGE FROM WASHINGTON

"Surely," the marine officer said, in answer to the boy's exclamation,
"that is a genuine, feathered owl. No boy could make so perfect an
imitation."

"It's Dutchy, all right," insisted Jimmie. "I've heard him make that
noise before. Now, how did he ever get to Tientsin, and how did he
locate us?"

"It doesn't seem possible that it is Hans," Ned said. "How could he
make the journey on foot, through a country suspicious of every
foreigner? And how comes it that he chanced on this building?"

"Didn't he know that you were expecting instructions from Washington
while on the way to Peking?" asked the officer.

"I did not know, myself, that I was to receive instructions while on the
way until I met you," Ned replied. "If Hans is indeed here, he has
either blundered into his present position or gained pretty accurate
information from some one unknown to me."

"If he is here?" repeated Jimmie. "Of course he is here. I'm goin' out
in the court an' give him the call of the pack!"

"What does he mean by that?" asked the officer of Ned. "Call of the
pack?"

"The call of the Wolf pack," answered Ned. "We both belong to the Wolf
Patrol, of New York."

"And you think Hans, if it is he, will understand?"

"Of course!" scorned Jimmie.

The little fellow was about to step out of the low window to the floor
of the court when a mist of light appeared at one of the glazed windows
on the