id, without conferring with Major Ross and the
assistants he had brought with him. It was insisted at the military
office that the instructions sent out had increased rather than
diminished the Lieutenant's authority to act.

One of two things seemed to be true. Either there was a traitor in the
office, or the instructions had been changed. The envelope might have
been shifted after reaching the man's hands or he might have substituted
the counterfeit ones for the original ones. In this latter case the
messenger was himself a traitor, and would bear watching.

Ned would have liked nothing better than to have remained in Manila for
the purpose of investigating this phase of the case, but he believed
that the mystery would be solved eventually where the work was being
done--on the ground with the native tribes which were being urged into
revolt. So he had provisioned the _Manhattan_ and, much to the joy of
the boys, headed for the group of islands north of Luzon.

It was glorious there in the channel, with the green islands lifting
from the lacquered sea, bluer than any sky the lads had ever seen. From
the bow of the _Manhattan_ spread two thin emerald lines curling
transparently and tipped with foam. Upon the immensity of the sea there
would be for hours no other movement, and upon the immensity of the sky
there would not be a fleck of cloud. At night the boys slept in their
bunks with the waves whispering to the sand of some sheltered bay.

"I hope we'll never find the island where the treaty is to be signed,"
Jack said, one morning. "I'd like to stay here forever."

"Why don't you build a hut on one of the islands and stay there, then?"
asked Jimmie.

"I guess you'd soon get weary of doin' the Robinson Crusoe act an' get
back to the Great White Way!"

"I'm not looking for life in the jungle," Jack replied. "The water is
good enough for me."

One morning when the _Manhattan_ lay in a bay on the eastern shore of an
island of good size and Jack proposed a trip to the shore.

"There's game up there," he said, pointing to an elevation not far from
the beach. "Unless I'm very much mistaken there is a line of hills on
the other side of this bit of land, with a valley in between the two. If
this is right, that valley will be well stocked with game, and I'm
getting hungry for fresh meat."

"There's surely one class of animal life there," Frank said. "Hear the
monkeys! They must be holding some kind of a convention!"