It takes him a week and a half to cover the fifty kilometers, but in time, with patience and perseverance, he reaches the town of Concepcion, and knocks on the door of their local contact around midnight. The contact is a prominent local citizen—the manager of the town’s only bank. Mr. Calagua is astonished to see an American standing at his back door. This tells Shaftoe that something must have gone wrong—the boys with the transmitter should have arrived a week ago. But the manager tells him that no one has shown up—though rumor has it that the Nips recently caught some boys trying to smuggle contraband in a farm cart and executed them on the spot.