MYSTERY
Doris received the object from Sally and stood looking at it as it lay
in her hands. It was a small, square, very flat tin receptacle of some
kind, rusted and moldy, and about six inches long and wide. Its
thickness was probably not more than a quarter of an inch.
“What in the world is it?” she questioned wonderingly.
“Open it and see!” answered Sally. Doris pried it open with some
difficulty. It contained only a scrap of paper which fitted exactly into
its space. The paper was brown with age and stained beyond belief. But
on its surface could be dimly discerned a strange and inexplicable
design.
“Of _all_ things!” breathed Doris in an awestruck voice. “This certainly
is a mystery, Sally. What _do_ you make of it?”
“I don’t make anything of it,” Sally averred. “That’s just the trouble.
I can’t imagine what it means. I’ve studied and studied over it all
winter, and it doesn’t seem to mean a single thing.”
It was indeed a curious thing, this scrap of stained, worn paper, hidden
for who knew how many years in a tin box far underground. For the riddle
on the paper was this:
[Illustration]
“Well, I give it up!” declared Doris, after she had stared at it
intently for several more silent moments. “It’s the strangest puzzle I
ever saw. But, do you know, Sally, I’d like to take it home and study it
out at my leisure. I always was crazy about puzzles, and I’d just enjoy
working over this, even if I never made anything out of it. Do you think
it would do any harm to remove it from here?”
“I don’t suppose it would,” Sally replied, “but somehow I don’t like to
change anything here or take anything away even for a little while. But
you can study it out all you wish, though, for I made a copy of it a
good while ago, so’s I could study it myself. Here it is.” And Sally
pulled from her pocket a duplicate of the strange design, made in her
own handwriting.
At this point, Genevieve suddenly became restless and, clinging to
Sally’s skirts, demanded to “go and play in the boat.”
“She doesn’t like to stay in here very long,” explained Sally.
“Well, I don’t wonder!” declared Doris. “It’s dark and dreary and weird.
It makes me feel kind of curious and creepy myself. But, oh! it’s a
glorious secret, Sally,--the strangest and most wonderful I ever heard
of. Why, it’s a regular _adventure_ to have found such a thing as this.
But let’s go out and sit in the boat and let Genevieve paddle. Then we
can talk it all over and puzzle this out.”
Sally returned the tin box and its contents to the hiding-place under
the mattress. Then she blew out the candle, remarking as she did so that
she’d brought a lot of candles and matches and always kept them there.
In the pall of darkness that fell on them, she groped for the entrance,
pushed it open and they all scrambled out into the daylight. After that
she padlocked the opening and buried the key in the sand nearby and
announced herself ready to return to the boat.
During the remainder of that sunny morning they sat together in the
stern of the boat, golden head and auburn one bent in consultation over
the strange combination of letters and figures, while Genevieve,
barefooted, paddled in silent ecstasy in the shallow water rippling over
the bar.
“Sally,” exclaimed Doris, at length, suddenly straightening and looking
her companion in the eyes, “I believe you have some idea about all this
that you haven’t told me yet! Several remarks you’ve dropped make me
think so. Now, honestly, haven’t you? What _do_ you believe is the
secret of this cave and this queer jumble of letters and things,
anyway?”
Sally, thus faced, could no longer deny the truth. “Yes,” she
acknowledged, “there _is_ something I’ve thought of, and the more I
think of it, the surer I am. And something that’s happened since I knew
you, has made me even surer yet.” She paused, and Doris, wild with
impatience, demanded, “Well?”
“_It’s pirates!_” announced Sally, slowly and distinctly.
“_What?_” cried Doris, jumping to her feet. “Impossible! There’s no such
thing, nowadays.”
“I didn’t say ‘nowadays,’” remarked Sally, calmly. “I think it _was_
pirates, then, if that suits you better.”
Doris sank down in her seat again in amazed silence. “A pirate cave!”
she breathed at last. “I do believe you’re right, Sally. What else
_could_ it be? But where’s the treasure, then? Pirates always had some
around, didn’t they? And that cave would be the best kind of a place to
keep it.”
“That’s what this tells,” answered Sally, pointing to the scrap of
paper. “I believe it’s buried somewhere, and this is the secret plan
that tells where it is. If we could only puzzle it out, we’d find the
treasure.”
A great light suddenly dawned on Doris. “_Now_ I know,” she cried, “why
you were so crazy over ‘Treasure Island.’ It was all about pirates, and
there was a secret map in it. You thought it might help you to puzzle
out this. Wasn’t that it?”
“Yes,” said Sally, “that was it, of course. I was wondering if you’d
guess it. I’ve got the book under the bow seat of the boat now. Let’s
compare the things.” She lifted the seat, found the book, which fell
open of its own accord, Doris noticed, at the well-known chart of that
well-loved book. They laid their own riddle beside it.
“But this is entirely different,” declared Doris. “That one of ‘Treasure
Island’ is a map or chart, with the hills and trees and everything
written plainly on it. This is nothing but a jumble of letters and
figures in little squares, and doesn’t make the slightest sense, no
matter how you turn or twist it.”
“I don’t care,” insisted Sally. “I suppose all secret charts aren’t
alike. I believe if we only knew how to work this one, it would
certainly direct us straight to the place where that treasure is
buried.”
So positive was she, that Doris could not help but be impressed. “But
pirates lived a long time ago,” she objected, “and I don’t believe there
were ever any pirates around this place, anyway. I thought they were
mostly down around Cuba and the southern parts of this country.”
“Don’t you believe it!” cried Sally. “I’ve heard lots of the old
fishermen about here tell how there used to be pirates right along this
coast, and how they used to come in these little rivers once in a while
and bury their stuff and then go out for more. Why there was one famous
one they call ‘Captain Kidd,’ and they say he buried things all about
here, but mostly on the ocean beach. My father says there used to be an
old man (he’s dead now) right in our village, and he was just sure he
could find some buried treasure, and he was always digging around on the
beach and in the woods near the ocean. Folks thought he was just kind of
crazy. But once he really did find something, way down deep, that looked
like it might have been the bones of a skeleton, and a few queer coins
and things all mixed up with them. And then every one went wild and
began digging for dear life, too, for a while, but they never found
anything more, so gradually they left off and forgot it.”
Doris was visibly stirred by this curious story. After all, why should
it not be so? Why, perhaps could not _they_ be on the right track of the
buried treasure of pirate legend? The more she thought it over, the more
possible it became. And the fascination of such a possibility held her
spellbound.
“Yes,” she agreed, “I do believe you’re right, Sally. And now that I
look it over, these letters and numbers might easily be the key to it
all, if we can only work it out. Oh, I never heard of anything so
wonderful happening to two girls like ourselves before! Thank you, a
million times, Sally, for sharing this perfectly marvelous secret with
me.”
“I do believe I’m enjoying it a great deal better myself, now that I’ve
told you,” answered Sally. “I didn’t think it could be so before I did.
And if we ever discover what it all means----”
“Why, precious!” interrupted Doris, turning to Genevieve, who all
unnoticed had come to lean disconsolately against the side of the boat,
her thumb tucked pathetically in her mouth, her eyes half tearful.
“What’s the matter?”
“I’m hung’y and s’eepy!” moaned Genevieve. With a guilty start, Doris
gazed at her wrist watch. It was nearly one o’clock.
“Merciful goodness! Mother will be frantic!” she exclaimed. “It’s
lunch-time now, and we’re way up here. And just see the way I look!” She
was indeed a scratched, grimy and tattered object. “Whatever will I
tell her?” They scrambled to their oars and were out in the river before
Sally answered this question.
“Can’t you tell her you were exploring up on Slipper Point?”
“Yes,” agreed Doris. “That is the real truth. And she never minds if I
get mussed and dirty, as long as I’ve enjoyed myself in some way that’s
all right. But I hope I haven’t worried her by being so late.”
They rowed on in mad, breathless haste, passed the wagon-bridge, and
came at last in sight of the hotel. But as they beached the boat, and
Doris scrambled out, she said in parting:
“I’ve been thinking, all the way down, about that secret map, or
whatever it is, and I have a new idea about it. I’ll tell you tomorrow
morning. This afternoon I’ve promised to go for a drive with Mother.”