Haitian boy? If
sufficiently ragged, he might be able to pass without suspicion. It
might be only for a day or two, for Stuart was sure that his father
would appear again on the scene very soon.

This much, at least, he had decided. No one was going to plot against
his country if he could help it. There was not much that he could do,
but at least he could shadow one of the conspirators, and what he found
out might be useful to his father.

This determination reached, the boy hunted for some wild fruit to stay
his appetite--he had nothing to eat since the night before--and settled
down for the rest of the afternoon to try and dig out the meaning of his
father's papers, some of which seemed so clear, while to others he had
no clew. It was characteristic of the boy that, once this idea of menace
to the United States had got into his head, the thought of personal
danger never crossed his mind. The slightly built boy, small even for
his age, the first sight of whom would have suggested a serious
high-school student rather than a sleuth, possessed the cool ferocity of
a ferret when that one love--his love of country--was aroused.

His first step was clear. As soon as it was dark enough to cover his
movements, he would go to the house of one of his father's friends, a
little place built among the ruins of Cap Haitien, where they had stayed
two or three times before. From references in some of the letters,
Stuart gathered that his father had confidence in this man, though he
was a Haitian negro.

As soon as the shadows grew deep enough, Stuart made his way through the
half-grown jungle foliage--the place had been a prosperous plantation
during French occupation--and, a couple of hours later, using by-paths
and avoiding the town, he came to this negro's house. He tapped at the
same window on which his father had tapped, when they had come to Cap
Haitien a week or so before, and Leon, the negro, opened the door.

"But, it is you, Yes!" he cried, using the Haitian idiom with its
perpetual recurrence of "Yes" and "No," and went on, "and where is
Monsieur your father?"

"I don't know," answered Stuart, speaking in English, which he knew Leon
understood, though he did not speak it. "I have missed him."

"But where, and but how?" queried Leon, suddenly greatly excited. "Was
he already going up to the Citadel?"

Stuart's face flushed with reflected excitement, but his eyes held the
negro's steadily. Leon knew more than the boy