ren who ought to be spanked and put to bed, he
flung himself out of the room.

"You saw Hans?" asked Ned, then.

Jimmie opened his eyes in amazement.

"Did you?" he asked.

"I saw the tousled head you saw," replied Ned.

"I thought you were looking another way," commented the little fellow.
"That was Hans, all right.'

"But why does he remain inactive? He knows there is something doing
down here, else he would not have shown the signal of warning. He ought
to be out of that window by this time."

"This is a country of hard knots," laughed Jimmie. "They may have tied
up his fat little trotters."

In spite of the serious situation, Ned laughed.

"The tying up in this case makes it seem like a cheap drama on the lower
East Side in New York," he said.

"I think I might get up to that window," Jimmie suggested.

"How?" asked Ned.

"By the lower window frames an' castings. If you'll manage to keep the
Chinks off me I'll try."

"It is worth trying," Ned mused.

The other windows opening on the court were now closed. The sleepy
natives, possibly doped with opium, had wearied of watching the figures
in the rear room of the telegraph office and tumbled back into bed, or
back on such miserable heaps of dirty matings as they chose to call
beds.

The sounds of conflict had already died out in the front office, and
another visit from the evil-faced detective was momentarily expected, so
Jimmie was urged to make the proposed attempt to reach Hans at once.

He passed out of the window, crossed the beaten earth floor of the
court, and began to climb. Ned was pleased to see that he had little
difficulty in ascending to the window. Once there he heard him rap on
the pane. There was a pause, and then the boy pushed up the sash and
clambered inside.

Ned was glad to see that the boy had the good judgment to draw the sash
down, as soon as he was in the room. What he would discover there the
watcher had no idea.

He might find Hans there under guard. He might discover, when it was
too late, that the German had been, unwillingly, used as a decoy by
cunning natives into whose hands he might have fallen.

Still, there were the signals! The natives could not have known of the
Boy Scout system of warnings, and Hans would certainly have volunteered
nothing in the way of allurement.

He watched the window for what seemed to him to be a very long time.
The pane remained dark.

"If the lad finds the situation fav