The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View Part 15

"Pry the cover off!" cried Will. "An axe is the best thing to use!"

"Indeed not!" exclaimed Betty. "Let's see if we can't open it with a key. You have some odd ones; haven't you, Daddy?"

"Yes," a.s.sented Mr. Nelson, who was down at the sh.o.r.e for the week-end.

"Betty, get them. You'll find them in that desk in the living room."

Betty's father had looked at the box on all sides, had shaken it, and had examined the lock through a reading gla.s.s.

"It sure is a find, all right!" declared Roy Anderson. "I wish I had been with you."

"Oh, if it's a treasure-trove, we'll all share, as they did in Treasure Island," declared Betty, who was almost a boy in her liking for adventure stories.

"Ahem!" exclaimed Allen Washburn, with an elaborate a.s.sumption of dignity. "Treasure, you know, is subject to the claim of the commonwealth, if the lawful heirs cannot be located. I must look up the law on that subject."

"More likely it's the spoil of pirates, and fair booty for whoever finds it!" declared Will. "I think I'm the proper one to take charge of this, representing as I do the United States Government, which takes precedence over any State commonwealth."

"Go on!" laughed Henry Blackford. "You'll be saying next that it's smugglers' booty, and you'll be asking us to pay a duty on it. Let's open the box and see what it is--maybe nothing but seaweed. I've heard of jokes being played before," and he looked at the girls meaningly.

"Oh, _we_ didn't hide it and then find it again," Amy a.s.sured him, so earnestly that the others laughed.

"Well, here goes for a try, anyhow," said Mr. Nelson.

With a bunch of a.s.sorted keys he tried one after another in the strange lock. Some keys would not even enter the aperture, while others turned uselessly around in it.

Betty's father used all he had without success, and then the boys were called on. They were not able to produce the Sesame to the j.a.panned box, and Will's plan of using an axe was finding more favor when Allen produced a small key of peculiar make.

"Try this," he said. "It locks the switch on the motor boat, but it may fit. It looks as though it would."

And, to the surprise of them all, it did. As though it had been made for that lock, the little switch key slipped in. There was a click, a grinding sound, as the cover slipped on the sand-encrusted hinges, and the lid went back.

"Stung!" cried Roy, as nothing was seen but a slip of paper within the black interior.

Mr. Nelson lifted it out.

"I can't make anything of this," he said. "It's some sort of a note, written in cipher, I should judge. It is signed 'B. B. B.'"

"The same letters that are on top of the box," said Allen.

"Was there ever a pirate who had those initials?" asked Mollie, and the others laughed. "Well, there might have been," she went on. "I don't think it's so funny."

"Of course it isn't, dear," declared Betty. "I guess we're all a bit nervous. Is that all there is, Daddy?"

"Everything, my dear. The box is empty save for this bit of paper that doesn't make any sense."

"We must translate that at once, sir," said Allen. "If it is in cipher that's all the more evidence that it means something. I might have a try at that secret message, or whatever it is."

"Well, you're welcome to have a go at it," a.s.sented Mr. Nelson. "It may all be a joke, so don't take it too seriously."

"I'll not," agreed Allen.

He took the paper from Mr. Nelson's hand. The others looked over his shoulder at it.

"Oh, what do you suppose it means?" marveled Grace. "Do hurry and translate it, Allen."

CHAPTER XII

THE FALSE BOTTOM

For a moment the queer box itself was forgotten in the wonderment over the cipher. That it would prove a solution to the mystery, if such there was, and that it was not a joke, was believed by all. Even Allen, calm as he usually was, displayed some excitement. The girls themselves could not conceal their eagerness.

"How are you going to make sense out of that?" asked Roy, who did not like to spend much time over anything. "It's worse than Greek."

"Most ciphers are," agreed Allen. "The only way to translate it is to go at it with some sort of system. I'll need plenty of paper, and some pencils."

"I'll tell you what to do," said Mr. Nelson. "Make several copies of the cipher, and we can all work on it at once. It will be a sort of game."

And a fascinating game it proved. The possibility that the queer paper in the iron box might contain directions for finding some hidden treasure made it all the more alluring.

"There are any number of ciphers," Allen explained, when several copies had been made of the original. "The simplest is to change the letters of the alphabet about, using Z for A, and so on. Another simple one is to make figures stand for letters, as No. 1 is A, and so on. But those are so simple that only a schoolboy would use them."

"What are same of the more difficult ciphers?" asked Betty.

"Well, there are so many I don't know that I could explain them all. But the most simple of the difficult ones is the taking of a number of arbitrary signs or symbols to represent the letters of the alphabet.

That is what was done in Poe's 'Gold Bug,' you remember. Unless the person has a copy of the list of signs and symbols it is very difficult to decipher that cipher, or decode it, as they say in government circles."

"Ahem!" exclaimed Will, with an important air, as all eyes were turned on him. "I ought to know something about that, but you see they haven't trusted me with the code book yet. Now then, Allen, how are we to go about this Chinese puzzle?"

"If I had that story of Poe's here, it would be rather easier," Allen said. "As it is, we shall have to do a little preliminary work. To start off with we will take the letter E."

"Why E?" asked Roy.

"Because of all the letters in the ordinary use of English, that letter most frequently occurs," Allen answered. "In other words, if you take a written, or printed, page, and count up the letters, you will find that E is used most frequently."

"What is the next one?" asked Mollie. "Oh, isn't this fascinating, girls!"

"It will be more fascinating to discover the secret," Betty said.

"I don't know what letter is next in importance, or, rather frequency,"

Allen answered. "But we will each take a book and by counting the letters on a page we can find out."

"Some work!" groaned Roy. But they began it. Even Mr. and Mrs. Nelson were interested enough in the novel game to attempt it.

It took some little time, but at last Betty and Allen, who were working together, announced that they found A to be the next most predominating letter after E. And the others' search agreed with this. Then in order came o, i, d, h, n, and so on.

But they did not do that in one day, or even two, for they found it rather tiring to the eyes. So that it was not until three days after the finding of the box that Allen was ready with the ground-work of his cipher translation.