The Outdoor Girls at Ocean View Part 14

"Oh, then you are sure it _is_ treasure," Mollie returned.

"Well, we might as well think that as anything else--until we get the box open and find it full of--sand!" declared Betty, laughing.

"Oh, let's open it now!" cried Grace, impulsively. "I'm just dying to see what's in it. Please let's open it now."

"Perhaps we have no right," objected Amy.

"Why, of _course_ we have," insisted Grace, making "big eyes" at Amy.

"We found it. Can't we open it, Betty?"

But there was a very good reason why the girls could not open the box--at least then and there.

CHAPTER XI

THE CIPHER

"Locked!" exclaimed Betty, laconically, when she had tried the cover of the box.

"Oh, dear!" came petulantly from Grace. "Isn't that horrid!"

"Well, I suppose the men have a right to lock up their treasure," coolly remarked Betty, again vainly trying to raise the cover.

"You will have it that those men hid the box," said Amy, with a smile.

"Also that it is treasure."

"I'm getting romantic--like Grace," commented the Little Captain.

Then, as they found that their efforts to open the box were vain, the girls looked at it more closely.

It was a black j.a.panned box of tin, or, rather, light sheet iron, rather heavier than the usual box made for holding legal papers. It was such a receptacle as would be described, in England, as a "dispatch box." And in fact, the box did seem to be of some foreign make. It was not like the light tin affairs used locally to hold deeds, insurance policies and the like.

The cover fitted on tightly. This much was seen at a glance, and so well did it fit that it needed a second look to make sure which was the bottom and which the top, for there was no bulge or "shoulder" of the metal to indicate where the lid rested.

"It's water-tight, I'm sure," Mollie said, when the box had again been set upright. They decided that the top was that place where the initials "B. B. B." showed, half-obliterated, in white paint.

"Then it might have been washed ash.o.r.e from some wreck," Amy said.

"Too heavy to float," was the answer of Mollie, as she again lifted it.

"But it could work up in a heavy wind or sea; that is, if it didn't go down too far from sh.o.r.e," Grace remarked. "But can't we get it open some way?"

"We might break it," Mollie observed. "Otherwise, I don't see how we can. It is a complicated lock, if I am any judge," and she looked at the front of the box. "Let me take that stake, Amy."

"Oh, no! Don't break it open!" expostulated Betty. "We must try and see if we can't slip the lock, after we get it home. Papa has a lot of odd keys."

"But I don't see any lock!" exclaimed Grace.

"There it is," and Betty pushed to one side a round disk of metal that fitted over the keyhole.

Whether this was to keep out sand or water, the girls could not determine. It might even have been designed to hide the keyhole, but former use, or the battering which the box had received, had loosened and disclosed the metal slide, and Betty's quick eyes had discerned the object of it.

"It would take a peculiar key to open that," decided Mollie. "Mamma has a historic French jewel case home, and it has a lock something like that."

"Oh, suppose this contains--jewels!" cried Grace. "Wouldn't it be just--"

"Nonsense!" broke in Betty. "If the box contains anything at all it is probably papers of no value. My own opinion is that there's nothing in it, for it's too light. However, we'll take it home, and see what the boys say."

"You seem to have a great deal of faith in their opinion," laughed Mollie. "Ah, my dear!" and she put a finger on Betty's blushing cheek.

"Methinks it is the opinion of _one_ certain boy you want."

"Silly!" murmured Betty.

"Oh, don't mind us. A legal opinion would be most excellent to have,"

mocked Grace. "Now who is eating the chocolates?" she wanted to know.

Betty did not answer. She bent over the black box, with its indefinable air of mystery, and the three queer letters on the top. She was, seemingly, trying to find a way to open it.

Finally she straightened up, looked once more across the bay and said:

"Well, let's take it to Edgemere."

"And let's hurry, too!" urged Amy.

"Hurry? Why?" asked Grace. "There's no more danger from the storm."

"No, but those men might come back, and, finding their treasure gone--oh, well, let's hurry," she finished.

"Don't make me nervous," begged Grace, with a glance over her shoulder.

"Come along, Betty. I'm just dying to see what is in it. But I'm not so sure those men in the boat left it, and if they demand it don't you give it up to them."

"Oh, I should say not!" cried Mollie, bristling a bit. "_We_ found the box. They'll have to prove ownership."

Betty tucked the box under her arm. No one disputed her right to carry it, for the other girls deferred to the Little Captain in matters of this sort.

"Won't the boys be surprised when they see it!" commented Amy.

"But listen!" cautioned Betty. "We mustn't pretend that we think there is anything in it. If we do, and there isn't, they'd have the laugh on us."

"Oh, of course," a.s.sented Grace. "We'll just say we found the box on the beach, and couldn't open it. The boys will be anxious enough to do that."

And, sure enough, when the girls reached the cottage, the boys being not far behind them, the latter were even more eager than Betty and her chums to have a look inside the mysterious iron case.

"Pry the cover off!" cried Will, when he and the others had briefly related their experience in saving their motor boat and sailing back in the other craft, while the girls gave their story bit by bit, from the sighting of the men in the boat, to the finding of the box. Only Betty said nothing about the faces at the window of the fisherman's hut.