"Don't be so mysterious."
"I want the matter to sink deep into your alleged minds!" was Ned's
smiling rejoinder, "and that is the reason I'm drawing the
explanation out. It is thought the boy was stolen by some one who
came over the sea to do the job--some one never before in this
country."
"I twig!" Jimmie declared, skipping about the room. "The stolen boy
is next of succession to some measly old throne! What? And he was
sent out here to get him out of the zone of danger, and now he's been
nipped?"
The boys looked at Ned with redoubled interest. It had been
interesting, the very idea of going into the mountains in quest of an
abducted child, but the thought of going after a boy who would one
day be a king! That was exciting indeed!
"I can't tell you who the boy is." Ned went on, "but I can tell you
that he must be found! The Secret Service men at Washington have a
pretty good idea as to who got him, and they believe the criminals
are not above committing the crime of murder. In a certain sense,
this boy is in the way in the old country!"
"Oh, they wouldn't kill a kid like that!" Jimmie asserted.
"Wouldn't they?" demanded Teddy Green. "If you read up on history,
you'll soon find out whether ambitious men will murder children who
stand in their way! I half believe the boy was murdered at the very
moment he was taken!"
"He has been seen alive since that time," Ned responded.
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