"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," assented 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.

In the meanwhile the motor boat had been repaired and was ready for service. The weather had cleared, and in the intervals of working over the mysterious paper in the box the boys, escorted by the girls, went to the place where it had been found. The hole in the sand was just as they had left it.

"The men haven't come back to discover their loss," said Betty.

"Or, if they have, they are leaving the ground undisturbed with a view to getting a clue to the one who took the box," Allen said, with a look at Betty.

The next day a real attempt was made to decipher the code. As Allen had said, it was made up of several letters, numbers and arbitrary signs, some of them resembling Chinese characters in form.

"The thing to do," said Allen, "is to pick out the letter, number or sign that occurs most frequently. In other words, the predominating one. And that will be E, for E is the predominating letter in any communication. Now we'll begin."

They all had great hopes, but, alas! they were doomed to disappointment. For either Allen's system was wrong, or else the cipher did not follow the plan of any of the well known ones. They succeeded in deciphering it, after a fashion, but the result was a meaningless jumble of words that told them nothing. The word "treasure" did not even occur; that is, according to the translation made by Allen.

"Well, I give up," he said, with a sigh of disappointment. "I sure thought I could make something of it, but I can't."

"Maybe Will could send it to some of his Secret Service friends," suggested Grace.

"Yes, I could do that," her brother assented. "Let's let the government experts take a crack at it, Allen."

"I'm willing," assented the young lawyer.

Betty was in a corner of the big sitting room, the bay window of which gave a beautiful view of the ocean. She had the queer box in her lap, and was turning it from side to side, now and then holding it to her ear and shaking it.

"What are you doing, Betty Nelson?" asked Grace, coming in from a walk to town.

"I was just listening to see if there was any hidden mechanism in this box," answered the Little Captain. "I wonder if there's a ruler anywhere about?" she went on.

She found a foot ruler, and with that began measuring inside and outside the box, jotting down some figures on a piece of paper.

"What's this—a new way to work out the cipher I couldn't solve?" asked Allen, coming in.

"Don't talk to me for a minute, please," said Betty, puckering up her forehead.

She seemed to be adding and subtracting, and then she suddenly cried:

"I thought so! I thought so! It is the only way to account for the thickness of it."

"The thickness of what?" asked Allen.

"The bottom of that box!" went on Betty. "It has a false bottom. I'm sure of it. Look here! It is seven inches deep on the outside, and only five inches deep inside. Where are those two missing inches except in a false bottom?"

In her excitement Betty tapped on the inside of the bottom of the box with the ruler, and then a strange thing happened.

There was a clicking, springing sound, and the bottom of the iron box seemed to rise up in two parts, like the twin doors of a sidewalk elevator hatchway. The false bottom had been found, and as it swung up out of the way there was disclosed an opening in which lay a package wrapped in white tissue paper.

"Oh! Oh!" cried Betty, staring at the box "I—I've found it—the treasure!"



CHAPTER XIII

THE DIAMOND TREASURE

For a moment the others clustered around Betty like bees in a swarm, saying not a word. The girls could only gasp their astonishment as they looked over the Little Captain's shoulder, as she sat there, holding the black box, the false bottom of which had so unexpectedly opened before their eyes.

The boys were a little more demonstrative.

"How in the world did you do it, Bet?" asked Will.

"Did you know there was some trick about the box?" demanded Roy.

"She's been holding this back," declared Henry, nudging his sister Amy.

"And to think of all the time we wasted on that cipher!" observed Allen, reproachfully.

This seemed to galvanize Betty into speech.

"I didn't know a thing about it!" she declared, earnestly. "I just discovered it by accident. Of course when I found there was a difference in depth between the inside and the outside of the box I began to suspect something. But I didn't dream of—this!"

She motioned to the white package in the secret compartment—a package she had not, as yet, touched.

"But how in the world did you come to discover it, Betty dear?" asked Mollie, with wonder-distended eyes.

"It seemed to open itself," the Little Captain replied. "I just dropped the end of the ruler in the box, and it sprang open."

"You must have touched the secret catch, or spring," was Allen's opinion.

"Let's have a look!" proposed Will. "I always did want to see how one of those hidden mysteries worked. Pass it over, Betty!"

"Indeed, don't you do it!" cried Mollie. "Let's see, first, what is in that package, Betty. You said it was a treasure; didn't you?"

"Well, that's what I said," admitted Betty. "But it will probably be some more meaningless cipher."

"Oh, do open it!" begged Grace. "I'm all on pins and needles——"

"Thinking it may be—chocolates!" teased her brother.

She aimed a futile blow at him, which he did not even dodge.

Betty reached in and lifted the white tissue-paper package from its hiding place. It almost completely filled the space. There was a rustling sound, showing that the paper had acquired no dampness by being buried under the sand in the box.

"Put it on the table," suggested Allen, removing the box from Betty's lap. She turned to the table, near which she had been sitting, when her experiment resulted so unexpectedly. On the soft cloth she laid the paper packet.

"Now don't breathe!" cautioned Mollie, "or the spell will be broken."

No one answered her. They were all too intent on what would be disclosed when those paper folds should be turned back.

"It looks just like—just like—pshaw! I know I've seen packages just like that before, somewhere," said Will. "But I can't, for the life of me, think where it was."

"Was it in a jeweler's window?" asked Amy, in a low voice, from where she stood beside him.

"That's it, little girl! You've struck it!" Will cried, and impulsively he held out his hand, which Amy clasped, blushing the while.

"What's that talk about a jeweler's?" asked Allen.

But no one answered him.

For, at that moment Betty had folded back the white paper, and there to the gaze of all, flashing in the sun which glinted in through an open window, lay a mass of sparkling stones. Thousands of points of light seemed to reflect from them. They seemed to be a multitude of dewdrops shaken from the depths of some big rose, and dropped into the midst of a rainbow.

"Oh!" cried Betty, shrinking back. "Oh!" She could say no more.

"Look!" whispered Grace, and her voice was hoarse.

"Well, I'll be jiggered!" gasped Will.

"Diamonds!" cried Allen. "Betty, you've discovered a fortune in diamonds!"

"Diamonds?" ejaculated Amy, and her voice was a questioning one.

Then there came a silence while they all looked at the flashing heap of stones—there really was a little heap of them.

"Can they really be diamonds?" asked Betty, finding her voice at last.

Allen reached over her shoulder and picked up one of the larger stones. He held it to the light, touched it to the tip of his tongue, rubbed it with his fingers and laid it back. He did the same thing with two others.

"Well?" asked Will, at length. "What's the verdict?"

"I'm no expert, of course," Allen said, slowly, and he seemed to have difficulty in breathing, "but I really think they are diamonds."

"Diamonds? All those?" cried Mollie. "Why, they must be worth—millions!"

They all laughed at that. It seemed a relief from the strain, and to break the spell that hung over them all.

"Hardly millions," spoke Allen, "but if they are really diamonds they will run well up into the thousands."

"But are they really diamonds?" asked Betty.

"As I said, I'm no expert," Allen repeated, "but a jeweler once told me several ways of testing diamonds, and these answer to all those tests. Of course it wouldn't be safe to take my word. We should have a jeweler look at these right away."

"I knew I had seen paper like that before," Will said. "It's just the kind you see loose diamonds displayed in around holiday times in jewelers' windows."

"That doesn't make these diamonds, just because they are in the proper kind of paper," scoffed Roy. "I think they're only moonstones."

"Moonstones aren't that color at all," declared Henry. "They are sort of a smoky shade."

"I guess Roy means rhinestones," said Amy, with a smile.

"That's it," he agreed. "They're only fakes. Who would leave a lot of diamonds like that in a box in the sand?"

"No one would leave them there purposely, to lose them," said Allen. "But I think we've stumbled on a bigger mystery here than we dreamed of. I am sure these are diamonds!"

"I—I'm afraid to hope so," said Betty, with a little laugh.

"Well, it's easy to tell," Allen said. "There's a jeweler in town. He probably doesn't handle many diamonds, but he ought to be able to tell a real one from a false. Let's take one of the smaller stones and ask him what he thinks."

"Oh, yes, let's find out—and as soon as we can!" cried Grace. "Isn't it just—delicious!"

"Delicious!" scoffed Will. "You'd think she was speaking of—chocolates!"



CHAPTER XIV

SEEKING CLUES

The first shock of the discovery over (and it was a shock to them all, boys included), the young folks began to examine the stones more calmly. They spoke of them as diamonds, and hoped they would prove to be stones of value, and not mere imitations.

There were several of fairly large size, and others much smaller; some, according to Allen, of only a sixteenth-karat in weight.

"But stones of even that small size may be very valuable if they are pure and well cut," he said.

"And what would be the value of the largest ones?" asked Betty, for there were one or two stones that Will was sure were three or four karats in size.

"I'd be afraid to guess," Allen said. "We'd better have them valued."

The girls handled the stones, holding them on their fingers and trying to imagine how they would look set in rings.

"Engagement rings?" asked Grace of Betty, who had suggested that.

"Silly! I didn't say anything of the kind!"

"Well, it isn't what you say, it's what you mean."

It did not seem they could look at the stones enough. Every specimen was examined again and again, held up to the light, and turned this way and that in the sun so that the sparkle might be increased.

"Well, I suppose we might as well put them away," said Betty, with a sigh, after a while. "It's no use wishing——"

"Wishing what?" demanded Mollie, quickly.

"That they were ours."

"Ours! I don't see why they aren't!" exclaimed Grace, quickly. "Of course Mollie and Amy dug them up, but——"

"Oh, don't hesitate on my account!" Mollie said, quickly. "If we share at all we share alike, of course."

"That's sweet of you, Billy," returned Betty. "But I don't see how we can keep them. The diamonds, if such they are, must belong——"

"Yes, whom do they belong to?" demanded Mollie. "If you mean the men we saw in the boat, I should say they didn't have any more right to them than we have. They were pirates if ever I saw any."

"Well, you never saw any pirates," remarked Betty, calmly. "But of course the men in the boat may have hidden the diamonds there."

"Do you think they knew they were in the box?" asked Amy.

"Well, whoever hid the box must have known it contained something of value," Betty declared. "They would hardly hide an empty box, and if they had found it locked they would have opened it to make sure there was nothing of value in it. Of course those men may only have been acting for others."

"But what are we to do?" asked Amy.

"We must try to find out to whom these diamonds belong," Betty said. "We'll have to watch the advertisements in the paper, and if we see none we'll advertise for ourselves. That's the law, I believe," and she looked at Allen.

"Yes, the finder of property must make all reasonable efforts to locate the owner," he said, "though of course he could claim compensation for such effort. I think the papers are our best chance for finding clues."

"Has there been a big diamond robbery lately?" asked Mollie.

"What has that to do with it?" Will wanted to know.

"Because I think these diamonds are the proceeds of some robbery," went on the girl. "As you say, the stones are wrapped in a paper just as though they had come from a jewelry store. It might be that those men broke into a store, took the diamonds and hid them in this secret part of the box, which one of them owned. They are probably from some big robbery in New York, or Boston, seeing we're nearer Boston than we are New York, up here."

"I don't remember any such robbery lately," Roy said, and he was a faithful reader of the newspapers. "But of course we've been pretty busy lately. I'll get some back numbers of the papers."

"Ha! What's going on now?" asked the voice of Mr. Nelson. He had come in from the station, having run up to Boston on business.

"Oh, Daddy!" cried Betty. "Such news! You'll never guess!"

"You've solved the cipher!" he hazarded.

"No. We didn't need to. We solved the mystery of the box, and look——"

She spread the sparkling stones out before him.

"Whew!" he whistled. "I should say that was news. Where did you get those?"

"In a hidden compartment of the black box. I stumbled on the secret spring by accident when I was measuring it. Are they diamonds, Father?"

Anxiously the young people hung on Mr. Nelson's answer.

He laid aside the packages he had brought from Boston, and turned for a moment to greet his wife, who had come into the room. She had been told of the find as soon as it was discovered, and had been properly astonished.

"It takes the young folks to do things nowadays," he said, with a smile.

"Doesn't it?" she responded.

"But are they diamonds? That's what we want to know!" chanted Betty, her arms around her father's shoulders.

Mr. Nelson tested the stones much as Allen had done, but he went farther. From his pocket he produced a small but powerful magnifying glass. It was one he used, sometimes, in looking at samples of carpet at his office. He put one of the larger stones under the glass.

The young people hardly breathed while the test was going on. But the result was not announced at once, for Mr. Nelson took several of the sparkling stones, and subjected them to the scrutiny under the microscope.

"Well," he announced finally, "I should say they are diamonds, and pretty fine diamonds, too!"

The girls gave little squeals of delight.

"You were right, old man," spoke Henry to Allen, with a nod.

"Well, I wasn't sure, of course" began the young law student "but——"

"Of course I didn't look at all the stones," broke in Mr. Nelson, and the talk was instantly hushed to listen to him, "but I picked several out at random, and made sure of them. And it is fair to assume in a packet of stones like this that, if one is a diamond, the others are also."

"And how much are they worth?" asked Betty. She was not mercenary, but it did seem the most natural thing to ask.

"Well, it's hard to tell," her father replied. "At a rough guess I should say—oh, put it at fifty thousand dollars."

"Oh!" cried Mollie. "To think of it!"

"Catch me! I'm going to faint!" mocked Roy, leaning up against Will.

"Do you really think they are as valuable as that?" asked Amy, in a gentle voice.

"She helped find them, and she wants to reckon her share," said Mollie, who did not always make the most appropriate remarks.

"Nothing of the sort!" exclaimed Betty. "It's just the wonder of it all."

"I think fifty thousand dollars would be pretty close to the mark," said Mr. Nelson. "I once had to serve on a committee to value the contents of a jewelry store for an estate. I didn't know much about precious stones, but the others gave me some points, and I remember them. Of course I may be several thousands out of the way, but——"

"Oh, fifty thousand dollars is a nice enough sum—to dream about," Betty said, with a gurgling laugh. "It will do very well, Daddy dear."

"But isn't it the most wonderful thing, that we should find all those diamonds!" gasped Mollie.

"Who could have hidden them?" wondered Amy.

"That's what we've got to find out," put in Allen. "I suggested the newspapers," he went on to Mr. Nelson.

"And a good idea," that gentleman said.

"Oh, Betty. Let's look at the box, and see how the wonderful false bottom fitted in," proposed Mollie. "I think it was the most perfectly gorgeous thing how you happened to discover it."

"And that's just how it was—a happening," the Little Captain remarked. "Oh, but if those men in the boat should discover that we have those diamonds, and come for them," and Betty glanced nervously over her shoulder.

"Ha! Let them deal with me!" exclaimed Will, as he displayed his Secret Service badge. "I'll attend to the—pirates!"

"I thought your specialty was—smugglers," voiced Allen, with a chuckle.

"Smugglers or pirates, it is all one to me!" Will declaimed, strutting about.

"Oh, but——" began Betty.

"Well, what?" Will asked. "Think I'm afraid?"

"No—oh, no. I was thinking of something else."

And to Betty came a vision of those glowering faces in the window of the fisherman's hut on the beach.



CHAPTER XV

A NIGHT ALARM

The diamonds were wrapped again in their protective covering of tissue paper. The girls could hardly take their eyes off them as Mr. Nelson put them in his pocketbook.

"Oh, it doesn't seem—real," sighed Betty, with a long breath.

"No, it is like some fairy story," agreed Mollie. "And to think the box has been in the house two or three days, and we never knew what a treasure it contained."

"Because of that secret compartment," suggested Amy. "Wasn't it just wonderful?"

That same false bottom of the tin box was interesting the boys more, just then, than were the diamonds themselves. Will, Allen, Roy and Henry gathered around the queer jewel casket.

"There, it's shut!" exclaimed Will, as a click proclaimed that he had pushed the two folding leaves of sheet iron back into place.

"You'd never know but that that was the real bottom," said Roy.

"Let's see if we can open it again," proposed Allen.

The boys tried, pushing here and there. But the bottom did not fly up as it had done for Betty.

"Say, what magical charm, or 'Open Sesame,' did you use on this?" asked Allen, after vainly trying. "We can't make it work, Bet."

"I don't know," she answered. "I just simply jabbed it with the ruler, that's all."

"Well, then, please 'jab' again," pleaded Will.

Obligingly Betty took the piece of wood, and began poking about in the bottom of the tin box. For some time she was as unsuccessful as the boys had been.

"I don't believe I can do it again," she said, puckering her forehead in an attempt to remember. "Let's see, I sat this way, and I held it that way."

"Did you have your fingers crossed?" asked Roy, laughing.

"What had that to do with it?" demanded Betty. But before Roy could answer she uttered a cry, for, as she was moving the ruler about on the bottom of the box, there was that sudden click and spring again, and the false bottom sprang out of the way, disclosing the place where the diamonds had been.

"How did you do it Betty?" asked Allen, and then it was seen that the ruler had pressed on a tiny plate in the corner of the box, a plate so well hidden that only the most careful scrutiny revealed it.

Once it was seen, however, the trick was easy to work. The cover was snapped into place again, and as soon as the ruler, or for that matter, the tip of one's finger, pressed on the little plate, the hiding place was disclosed.

The boys and girls "played" the trick over and over again, until it was an easy matter to do it.

"This is more fun than the cipher," said Allen, taking a copy of it from his pocket.

"Going to have another go at it?" asked Will.

"Yes. It might be a clue to the owner of the diamonds."

"That's so," agreed the other. "I would like to know to whom they belong."

"I suppose diamonds are smuggled once in a while; aren't they?" asked Allen.

"Indeed they are," Will answered. "That's what Uncle Sam has to guard against more than anything else. They are so easy to hide, and it doesn't take many of them to represent a whole lot of money. But then the government has the system down pretty fine, and it isn't often that anything gets away. You see as soon as any purchase of stones on the other side is made, word is sent to the officials here—that is, any purchase of any large amount, such as this."

"Then you don't think those diamonds were smuggled?" asked Allen.

"Not for a minute!" declared Will. "They're the proceeds of some robbery, all right. I'm sure of that. Smugglers don't work the game that way—bury the stuff in the sand. It's a robbery!"

"Well, perhaps you're right," assented Allen, as he bent over the cipher.

"I'll have another go at that with you," said Will, as he looked over his copy.

But the further efforts of the boys, and the girls, too, to decipher the code, were unavailing. The queer paper held fast to its mystery, if indeed mystery it concealed. It did not give it up as had the box with the secret bottom.

The day when the diamonds were discovered was an exciting one, and the excitement had not calmed down when evening came. Mr. Nelson had taken charge of the precious stones, and it had been decided not to say anything about them, even to the servants in the house.

"And I don't believe I'd take one to the village jeweler," was the opinion of Betty's father. "As a matter of fact, I don't believe he would be any better judge of the stones than I am, and he certainly would talk about them."

"That's right," Mollie agreed. "The folks here want to know what you had for breakfast and what you're going to eat for luncheon and dinner. I suppose they can't help it."

"No, the natives haven't much to do," affirmed Betty, "except to talk about the summer cottagers. But we'll keep quiet about the diamonds, at least down here."

"If the natives only knew what we know!" exclaimed Grace. "Think of having dug up buried treasure from the sand!"

"Poor Old Tin-Back would be heartbroken if he ever heard of it," said Amy, gently. "All his life he has dreamed of finding treasure, or ambergris or something, and here we come along and take it right from under his eyes."

"Poor old man," sighed Betty. "He is a dear, and so honest. He brought some crabs to-day, hard ones, for the shedders aren't around yet. And he was so careful to have every one alive. He held them up for me to see them wiggle."

"I can't bear them!" exclaimed Grace, making a wry face.

"You mean uncooked," observed Mollie. "I notice you take your share when the salad is passed."

"Oh, well, that's different," Grace returned.

"What are you going to do with the diamonds?" asked Betty of her father, when they were gathered around the sitting room table, after supper.

"I haven't fully decided," he said. "I want to make some inquiries in Boston, first, as to whether or not there has been a robbery."

"That's what I'll do, too," said Will.

"When are you going to Boston?" asked his sister. "First I heard about that."

"I'm going up in the morning," her brother answered. "I received word to report at the office. There's something that needs my attention. Ahem! Uncle Sam can't get along without me, it seems."

"Nothing like patting yourself on the back," Grace said.

"Just for that you sha'n't have any of—these!" and Will drew from his pocket a box that unmistakably held candy.

"Oh, Will. I didn't mean it!" Grace cried. "Of course you're of value to the government. What are they—those new bitter-sweets?"

"That's for you to ask, and Amy to know," said Will, as he passed Amy the confections.

"Oh, thank you!" she said, blushing furiously.

"Amy Blackford. What I know about you!" mocked Mollie.

"Oh, I'm going to share them, of course."

"Oh, of course!" chanted Grace. "How nice."

"Well, it will keep her still for a while, at least," sighed Will.

"Whom do you mean?" demanded Mollie, catching him by the ear.

"Ouch! Let go! I meant my sister—of course. A fellow wouldn't dare talk that way about anyone but his sister," confessed Will.

Merrily they discussed the finding of the diamonds, and what disposition might be made of them. The strange actions of the men in the boat, too, came in for a share of attention. The girls were quite sure the men had hidden the box in the sand, though whether or not they knew of the valuable contents was a question.

"Well, they'll look in vain for it now," declared Betty. "We have it," and she glanced at the now empty receptacle.

"Better put it away," suggested her father. "If the servants see it they may ask awkward questions."

"I'll keep it in my room," said Betty.

"And I'll have another go at this cipher to-morrow," Allen said. "I have a new idea for solving it."

"I thought you were going to take us girls out in the boat to-morrow," objected Mollie.

"So I am. But I can be working on this between times."

"Sorry I can't be with you," Will said.

"Then you are really going to run up to Boston?" asked Mr. Nelson.

"Yes, sir, I have to go, if I want to keep this new position."

"Well, I'd advise you to do so, then. Go up with me on the express in the morning."

"Thank you, I will."

"And if you hear anything about the diamonds, don't wait to come back and tell us, write—no, telegraph!" urged Betty.

"It wouldn't be wise to wire," her father objected. "There is no great rush. I will make some inquiries myself."

"And where will you leave the diamonds, meanwhile?"

"Down here, of course. I'm not going to carry them around with me—too valuable," and Mr. Nelson patted his pocket.

"I'll take the box to my room, and lock it in my trunk," Betty said.

The evening wore on. It was one of beautiful moonlight, and the party of young people went out on the beach to have a marshmallow roast over a drift-wood fire.

"The sea sparkles—just like diamonds," said Mollie, as they turned to go back to the cottage, when the little frolic had ended.

"Hush!" cautioned Betty. "Some one might hear you," and she looked out over the bay as though she might catch a glimpse of the rough men in the boat.

"You have diamonds on the brain," chided Grace.

The cottage became quiet. Only dim night lights burned. Betty had taken to her room the queer box, which had given up part of its secret. Her father had the diamonds with him.

It was Grace who gave the alarm. Awakening at she knew not what hour, and feeling the need of a drink of water, she donned a dressing gown and found her slippers. As she went through the hall to the bathroom, she saw a dark figure, unmistakably that of a man, gliding down the corridor. Under his arm was the black box, and in one hand was held a tissue paper packet.

"The diamonds!" screamed Grace, her voice shrilling out in the night. "Burglars are after the diamonds!"



CHAPTER XVI

ON THE BEACH

The whole house was roused in an instant. Lights gleamed in various rooms, and from the quarter where the maids slept came shrill screams that matched those of Grace herself. Hoarse shouts came from the rooms of the boys.

But the affair had a most unexpected ending. For the man at whose back Grace was gazing horror-stricken, turned at her sudden shout, and his face betrayed almost as much astonishment, not to say fear, as the countenance of the girl showed.

And then Grace noticed that the man was attired in a bath robe, the pattern of which was strangely familiar to her. She noticed this even before she looked at his face recognizingly, and beheld her host, Mr. Nelson.

"Oh! Oh!" gasped Grace, weakly, and she had to lean against the wall for support, for she was trembling.

"What—what's the matter?" asked Betty's father. "Are you ill, Grace?"

"No, but I—I thought you—oh, I thought——"

Out into the hall poured the others of Edgemere Cottage, attired in a nondescript collection of garments hastily donned. Will, in his bath robe, had his collar and tie in his hand, though it is doubtful if he wore an article of dress to which it could be attached. From the servants' rooms came frantic demands to know if the house were on fire.

"No, it's all right!" called Mr. Nelson. "Go back to bed, all of you!"

"But what's it all about?" asked Betty. "What is the matter?"

"Oh, I guess it's my fault," Grace said. "I got up to get a drink, and I saw your father going down the hall, with the box and the package of diamonds, and I thought—I thought he was a——"

"Burglar! Is that what you thought me?" demanded Mr. Nelson, as a smile crept over his face.

"Ye—yes," faltered Grace. "I know it was silly of me—dreadfully silly, but I—I——"

"It's all right, my dear. I don't blame you a bit!" comforted Betty, her arms around the shrinking figure of Grace. "Go on back, you boys!" she commanded the others. "Our—our hair isn't fit to be seen!" and the boys retired, snickering. No girl likes to be looked at in a dressing gown, when suddenly aroused from sleep. And one's hair doesn't appear half so becoming in that state as it does even under a bathing cap.

"But what does it all mean?" asked Mrs. Nelson, who had waited to put on something smarter than a dressing sack before venturing out into the hall.

"Grace thought papa was a burglar," explained Betty.

"Well—that is, I didn't exactly——" protestingly began Grace.

"Did you have a nightmare?" asked Mrs. Nelson. "I'm afraid the diamond excitement was too much for you. A little bromide, perhaps, or some——"

"Oh, she doesn't need that," Betty said as the boys "made themselves small" around a corner, that they might hear the explanation, if unseen. "She really did think papa was taking the diamonds."

"Why, he is!" cried Mrs. Nelson, as she caught sight of the objects her husband carried—the mysterious box and the packet of precious stones. "What are you doing with them?" she asked.

"I was putting them in a safer place," he explained. "Perhaps it was foolish of me, but, after I had brought them to my room, I got to thinking it was rather careless to leave them about so. It wasn't so much the fear of thieves as it was of fire. You know diamonds can't stand much fire."

"Oh, if they should be melted before we know who owns them!" gasped Mrs. Nelson.

"So when I found I couldn't sleep, for thinking of them," went on Betty's father, "I made up my mind to hide them in a different place. Perhaps it was foolish of me, but I couldn't help it. I'm as bad as some of the girls, I guess," and he glanced at Betty and her chums, who now, with flushed cheeks and looking pretty enough for any number of boys to gaze upon, even if their hair was a bit awry, stood grouped in the hall.

"So I got up," resumed Mr. Nelson, "took the diamonds from the bureau drawer where I had placed them, and started to take them down cellar. I——"

"Down cellar!" cried Betty. "What a place to hide diamonds—in the cellar!"

"It's the safest all-around place," her father said. "I don't believe any burglars would be able to find them where I was going to put them, and in case of fire the diamonds would be in little danger. Of course they might be buried under a lot of rubbish, but they wouldn't go up in puffs of smoke.

"So I got up as quietly as I could, and took the diamonds, intending to go down cellar with them, hoping I would disturb no one."

"But where did you get the box?" asked Betty. "That was in my room, Daddy."

"I know. I went in and took it out."

"And I never awakened?"

"No."

"A fine guard for the diamonds," mocked Will from around the corner of the hall.

"Go to bed—you boys!" commanded Betty.

"I thought I would take the box, too," Mr. Nelson resumed. "It forms one of the clues, and I didn't want anything to happen to that. So I decided to take that, put the diamonds in the secret bottom, and hide all down cellar. Only Grace rather upset my plans."

"I—I'm so sorry," said the thirsty one, contritely.

"Don't you be!" returned Betty. "You're as good as a watch dog. To think of me never waking when papa came in my room."

"I was glad you didn't," he said. "I hoped to have it all go off quietly, and tell you in the morning. But as long as you know it now I might as well proceed. I'll go on down cellar and hide them."

"And don't forget to tell us where you put them," Betty urged. "If you go away in the morning, we'll want to know where to run to get them in case the house does catch fire."

"Oh, don't suggest such a thing!" begged her mother.

Mr. Nelson laughed and went on down cellar, coming back soon to tell the waiting ones that he had found a little niche in the wall, near the chimney, and had put the diamonds in the box there. Then the house quieted down again.

Will and Mr. Nelson left on an early train for Boston, both promising to do all they could to learn the secret of the mysterious package of diamonds.

"And now what shall we girls do?" asked Betty, after breakfast.

"What do the boys want to do?" queried Mollie. "Perhaps you may have some plans for us."

"Sorry, ladies," Allen said, "but our boat is on a strike again, and we'll have to have it fixed. It isn't much, though, and we can go out this afternoon."

"Then we'll go down on the beach for a while," proposed Betty. "It's lovely this morning. We'll go in bathing just before luncheon, and then, after a little sleep, we'll be ready to have the boys amuse us."

"Sounds nice, to hear them tell us," commented Roy with a laugh.

And this plan was followed. When the boys went off in the motor boat, the ignition system of which was not working to their satisfaction, the girls strolled down to the shore, walking along it.

"Let's go as far as the place we found the diamonds," proposed Amy.

"Think you might find some more?" asked Betty, with a smile.

"No such luck. But I thought perhaps we might see——"

"Those men again? No, thank you!" cried Grace.

"Nonsense!" exclaimed Mollie. "The beach is free, and it is broad daylight. Come along."

So they strolled along the sand, stopping now and then to pick up a pretty shell or pebble. Out in the bay was the fleet of clamming boats, little schooners from which the grappling rakes were thrown overboard, and allowed to drag along the bottom with the motion of the craft, to be hauled up now and then, and emptied of their shelly catch.

On the other side of the point of land the ocean beat restlessly on the beach.

"Here's the place," exclaimed Betty, at length, as they came to the log where they had sat when Mollie and Amy dug up the box of diamonds.

"It doesn't look as though they had come back and searched in vain for the treasure," said Betty.

There was no evidence in the sand, that was certain. The girls looked about a bit, and then strolled on. Before they knew it they found themselves in front of the lone hut where, from the odor that hung in the air, and the evidence of nets and boats about, it was evident a fisherman dwelt.

As the girls came opposite this, the door opened and a woman, with a hard, cruel face, peered out.

"Ah, little missies!" she croaked, "it's a fine morning for a walk, but you must be tired. Won't you come in and rest?" And she leered up into their faces.



CHAPTER XVII

ANOTHER ALARM

At the first sight of the old crone Betty had drawn back, and now, as the fishwife spoke, in a voice which she tried to render melodious, though it ended only in a croak, the Little Captain seemed to urge her chums away.

"What does she mean?" whispered Grace.

"Come in and rest—it is wearyin' work, walkin' in the sand," the woman persisted. "I know, for many a day I have walked it lookin' for my man to come back from the fishin' channel. But he's away now, and it's lonesome for an old woman. Do come ye in!"

"No, thank you, we like to be out of doors," answered Betty, forestalling something Amy was going to say.

"I could give you a drink of milk," the old fishwife went on. "Nice cold milk. And cookies I baked myself—molasses cookies."

"No, thank you just the same," spoke Betty, in a voice she tried to render appreciative, though she showed a distinct distaste for the nearness of the old woman. "We have just had breakfast," she added.

"But won't you come in and rest?" the crone persisted. "The walk in the sand——"

"No, we aren't tired," said Mollie, seconding Betty's efforts. "And we must be going back. Come on, girls. I'll race you to the old boat!" she cried, with a sudden air of gaiety, and she set off at a rapid pace.

For a moment the others hung back, and then Betty cried:

"Come on, girls! It sha'n't be said that Billy beat me!"

The old woman stared after the girls, uncomprehendingly for a moment, and then, with a scowl on her face, turned back to the hut again.

"Run on! Run on!" she muttered. "But I'll get ye yet! I'll get ye!"

She turned, and seeing the backs of the girls toward her, shook a gnarled and wrinkled fist at them.

"I'll get ye yet!" she repeated.

As she entered the hut a man's face was thrust down through an opening in the ceiling—a hole that had been covered by a hatch-board.

"Wouldn't they come?" he asked.

"Naw! They turned from me as if I was dirt."

"The snips! Well, maybe we'll get another chance."

"Another chance?" repeated the crone.

"Yes! We've got to, I tell you. If not, Jake will——"

"Hush! No names!" cautioned the woman.

Meanwhile the outdoor girls, having raced to the goal, an old boat half-buried in the sand, came to a panting halt. Mollie had won, chiefly because she had started off before the others, for Betty was accounted the best runner of her chums.

"Well, what does it all mean?" asked Grace, who came limping in last, for, in spite of her expressed promise to the contrary, she still wore those high-heeled shoes. "You act as though you had run away from the plague, Betty!"

"And so we did, my dear. The plague of fish! Ugh! I can almost taste them—fishy, oily fish!"

"And she offered us—milk!" added Mollie.

"It would probably have been—cod-liver oil," spoke Betty, with a shudder of repugnance. "Oh, let me get a breath of real air!" and she turned her face to the misty wind of the sea.

"But what does it all mean?" asked Amy, in rather bewildered tones. "Why did we run away?"

"That's what I want to know," put in Grace. "And I believe—yes, I have dropped my chocolates. Oh, how provoking! I'm going back after them."

"You're going to do nothing of the sort!" declared Betty, with a firmness she seldom manifested.

"But—why?" questioned Grace. "Why can't I go back after my candy?"

"Baby!" mocked Mollie.

"Because it's probably near that abominable hut!" said Betty. "And that old crone might capture you. Did you see how eager she was to get us in there?"

"She did seem rather insistent," agreed Amy. "But was it any more than mere kindness?"

"If you ask me—it was," said Betty, firmly.

"But why?" persisted Grace.

"Eternal question mark!" Betty commented. "Now, girls," she went on, "I don't know all the whys and wherefores, but I'm sure of one thing, and that is nice people don't live in that hut. I don't mean just poor, or unfortunate, or ignorant people, either," she went on. "I mean they aren't nice—or—or safe! There, perhaps you'll like that better."

"Not safe?" repeated Grace. "What do you mean?"

"I mean I saw faces looking from the window of that hut, the day we found the diamonds, that I wouldn't want to meet in the dark, or alone—those who go with the faces, perhaps, I should say."

"Oh!" exclaimed Grace, glancing involuntarily over her shoulder.

"Oh, no one is following us," Betty said; "but I wanted to get well away."

"Why do you think she wanted us to go in?" inquired Mollie.

"Do you think it had anything to do with the diamonds?" was Amy's question.

"I don't know what to think," confessed Betty. "But I wouldn't have gone into that hut for a good bit. Though perhaps the worst we would have been asked would have been to purchase some worthless trifles."

"Or perhaps buy smuggled lace," suggested Mollie.

"I never thought of that!" exclaimed Betty. "Of course it might be that."

"If Will were only here!" said Amy.

"We'll tell him when he comes back," Betty said. "Perhaps it may not amount to anything, but if he can give the government some information it may serve him a good turn, since he is just beginning work in the Secret Service."

"But do you really think that old woman, and those you may have seen through the window of the hut the day we made our find, have anything to do with the diamonds?" asked Mollie.

"Frankly, I haven't the least idea," admitted Betty. "And what is the use of guessing and wondering? Only I am sure of one thing. I'll never go into that hut!"

Betty little realized how her boast was to be recalled to her under strange circumstances.

The outdoor girls sat down to rest on the old boat, and talked of many things. The impression caused by the old woman's invitation soon wore off. Then they started back, for they wanted to get their morning bath before luncheon.

"Oh, some one is here!" exclaimed Betty, as they saw an auto standing on the graveled drive of the cottage. "I wonder who it can be?"

"You father or Will wouldn't be back so soon; would they?" asked Amy.

"No, it must be——"

A voice interrupted Betty.

"Ah, I dare say I shall find them! I will keep along the beach. Charming weather, isn't it? Ah, yes, really!"

"Percy Falconer!" said Grace. "Catch me, somebody!"

"Hush! He'll hear you!" cautioned Betty, and a moment later the "johnny" of Deepdale, attired in the latest fashion in motoring togs, came out on the porch, followed quickly by Mrs. Nelson.

"Oh, here are the girls now!" said Betty's mother.

"Yes," assented Betty. "We are back," but there was no enthusiasm in her voice.

"Oh, but I say, I am charmed to see you—all," added Percy, after a glance at the Little Captain. "I motored down, don't you know. Father let me, after some arguing. I should have liked to come in the boat, with the rest of the fellows, but I can't stand the sea, really I can't. But I'm glad I'm here."

"Yes, we—we are glad to see you," Betty said. "We are going in bathing; won't you come along?"

"Ah, thank you, now. I'm afraid it's a little too cool for going into the water to-day; don't you?"

"No, we like it!" said Mollie. "How did you leave Deepdale?"

"Oh, everything is the same, though it's very lonesome, with you girls away."

"Oh, who let him in?" murmured Grace, with a despairing glance at Betty.

"Hush!" the latter cautioned her. "At least he has his car, and we can have a ride now and then," for Mollie's machine was in use by her mother that summer, and the girls had no chance at its pleasures.

"Mercenary!" whispered Mollie to the Little Captain.

Percy was made as welcome as the circumstances permitted, and he sat on the sand under a huge umbrella while the girls frolicked in the water. The boys came back for luncheon, and helped to divide the boredom of the newest arrival, though they made uncomplimentary remarks behind his back, and Betty was in constant fear lest some unpleasant incident should occur. She had to remember that she was the hostess.

Nothing was said of the incident at the fisherman's hut, and that afternoon the young people went for a motor boat trip. That is, all but Percy Falconer. He could not be induced to embark, even on the calm waters of the bay, and so he spent a lonesome afternoon at the cottage, talking to Mrs. Nelson.

Toward evening Betty found a chance to speak to Old Tin-Back, who came with a mess of crabs.

She asked him who lived in the little, lone hut.

"Well, no one as you would care to know, Miss Betty. He's a man that hasn't a good name."

"A man? But I thought a woman——"

"Oh, yes, Mag, his wife, is there, too. She's worse than Pete in some respects."

"Are they smugglers?" Betty wanted to know.

"Well, they might be, if there was anythin' to smuggle. But I call 'em just plain—thieves. Pete could tell lots about other folks' lobster and crab cars being opened if he wanted to, I guess."

A telegram came from Mr. Nelson that evening, saying he would remain in Boston two or three days. He added that there was "no news," which the girls took to mean he had heard nothing about the diamonds. Will sent no word.

It was about nine o'clock, when, after a stroll down the moonlit beach, the boys and girls were returning to the cottage. As they came up the walk a scream rang out.

"What's that?" cried Allen, who was beside Betty.

"It sounded like Jane, the cook," was the answer. "But——"

More screams interrupted Betty, and then the voice of a woman was heard calling:

"Come quick! There's men in the cellar!"



CHAPTER XVIII

ANXIOUS DAYS

"Come on, boys!" cried Allen, evidently the first to sense the meaning of the alarm.

"Oh, but shouldn't we have some sort of weapons, you know?" spoke Percy.

"Get out of my way!" cried Roy Anderson, brushing past the dude. "My fists are the only weapons I want."

Betty and the other girls hung back in a frightened group. The maid's voice continued to ring out, and now Mrs. Nelson could be heard demanding to know what was the matter.

"Around to the side, fellows!" commanded Allen. "There's an outer door they'll probably try for."

"But who'll guard the front here?" asked Amy's brother.

"Let Percy do that!" Allen flung back over his shoulder. "He probably won't come with us, anyhow," he added.

The three young men hastened around to the side of the cottage, while Percy, hardly knowing what to do, remained with the girls in front. At the side was an old-fashioned, slanting cellar door, the kind celebrated in song as the one down which children slide, to the no small damage of their clothes.

As Allen and his chums reached a point where they could view this door, they saw it suddenly flung up with a bang, and three men spring up the stone steps.

"There they are!" yelled Roy.

"After 'em!" shouted Henry Blackford.

"It wasn't a false alarm, anyhow," added Allen. "Hold on there!" he cried. "Stop! Who are you? What do you want? Stop!"

But neither the commands nor the questions halted the men. They ran on, with never a word of answer or defiance flung back—dogged shadows fleeing through the moonlight to the shrubbery-encompassed grounds of Edgemere.

"Stop, or I'll shoot!" cried Roy.

"Oh!" screamed Grace, covering her ears.

"Good bluff, all right," complimented Allen. "But it won't work."

Nor did it. Roy's bright idea went for naught, for the men still crashed on. They were lost sight of now behind a screen of bushes, but the boys were not going to give up the pursuit so easily.

"Come on!" called Allen. "We'll have them in another minute! They can't get over the stone wall."

"Stone wall?" echoed Henry.

"Sush! It was another bluff, just as my threat was to shoot," cautioned Roy. "It may turn them back."

But it did not. Evidently the men knew the grounds about Edgemere as well as did the boys, for there was no sign of a halt in their headlong pace. On they crashed through bushes and underbrush, dodging among the trees of the garden, and minding not the flower beds they trampled under foot.

"They're getting away from us," remarked Henry, who was panting along beside Allen.

"Yes, they evidently had a line of retreat all marked out."

"Who are they?"

"Haven't the least idea. Tramps, maybe—maybe something worse."

"You mean——"

"I don't know just what I do mean," replied Allen. "Come on, let's do a little sprint, and we may get them. If we don't they'll soon be down on the beach, and it will be all up with the chase if they have a boat, as they probably have."

"If it was on the ocean side we'd have some chance; the surf is heavy to-night."

"Yes, but they're running toward the bay."

As I have explained, Edgemere was built on a point of land. One side of the house fronted the ocean, and the other the bay. At this point the land was not above a thousand feet wide, and the cottage property extended from shore line to shore line.

As Allen had said, the intruders, coming from the cellar, had turned toward the bay side, and if they had a boat waiting for them in those quiet waters they would have no difficulty in pushing off. But if they had gone the other way the unusually heavy surf would have held them back, at least for a time.

"There they go!" cried Roy, breaking out through the last fringe of bushes.

"And in a motor boat, too!" added Roy.

"If we only had ours," Henry mourned.

But it was vain wishing. The Pocohontas was docked some distance away, and by the time the boys could reach her, and start an engine that was never noted for going without considerable "tinkering," it would be too late.

For the men had luck on their side. They fairly tumbled into a swift looking craft that was near shore, in charge of some one evidently waiting for them. In another instant the chug of the motor told that it had started. Then the boys had the dissatisfaction of standing on the sand, panting after their run, and seeing the men gradually draw out into the bay.

The sky had clouded over and the moon, that might have been a help, was not now of any service.

"Well, there they go," said Allen, in exasperated tones. "I'd give a good deal to know who they were, and what they were after."

"Let's go back to the house and see if we can find out," suggested Roy. "The fuss started there, you know."

"In the cellar—where the diamonds are," added Henry.

"That's so!" cried Allen. "For the moment I had forgotten them! Come on back. Maybe the rascals got the stones!"

The boys went back the same route they had so recently and so uselessly traveled. As they neared the cottage a voice hailed them.

"I say. Hold on! Who are you? What do you want? Remember there are ladies here!"

"It's Percy!" gasped Allen, trying not to laugh. "He's acting as home guard!"

"I wonder if he has his wrist watch on," laughed Roy.

"It's all right," called Henry, not wishing his sister and the other girls to be needlessly frightened. "We're coming back."

"Did you get them?" asked Betty, from the darkness.

"No, they got away in a boat," answered Allen. "Is anyone hurt?"

"No, but the servants and mother are quite frightened. Could you see who they were?"

"No. Evidently tramps, or fishermen. We'll have to have a look at those——"

Allen did not complete the sentence, but they all knew to what he referred.

"So you—er—missed them?" questioned Percy, when the two groups were together again. "Too bad! I was just coming to join you. I had to have a weapon, you know, and I found—this."

He showed a little stick which he had picked up.

"I should have hit them with it had I gotten near enough," he went on, seriously—for him.

"It's a good thing you didn't," spoke Roy. "You might have killed one of them with that, Percy."

"Oh, so I should! I—I can strike very hard when I am angry. I am just as well pleased that there was no need for desperate measures. I really am!"

But no one paid any attention to him now, though he tried to walk beside Betty. Allen and Roy had taken this vantage place, one on either side of the Little Captain.

"Betty, where are you?" called Mrs. Nelson, from the darkness.

"Here, Mother. Don't worry. It's all right. The men got away in a boat. We are coming in to hear all about it."

The story was soon told.

One of the maids, going down cellar to get something from the food store-room, had surprised a man prowling about with an electric flashlight.

The girl screamed, and her cries were augmented by the yells of another domestic in the kitchen.

Then the first girl saw two other men come from some part of the cellar and join the first one. They ran out just as the boys came up, and the fruitless chase resulted.

"What sort of men were they?" asked Betty of the girl who had given the alarm.

"Oh, I don't know, Miss Betty," was the half-sobbed reply.

"But you must know! Did he wear a tall hat or——"

"A tall hat? Of course not, miss. He was like a tramp, or a fisherman—maybe a clammer."

"That's how I sized them up," Allen said. "Fishermen. Did they say anything to you?" he asked the maid.

"Not a thing—no, sir. He just caught his breath, sort of frightened like, and ran out."

"Did the one you saw call to the others?"

"Oh, no, sir, they all ran out at once, as soon as I went down. I had a light myself."

"What part of the cellar were they in?"

"I couldn't exactly say. They seemed to be all over."

"Well, we'll have a look for—to see if anything is missing," Allen hastily changed his remarks, for the servants knew nothing about the diamonds; or, at least, they were not supposed to know about them.

"Come on, boys," the young law student went on.

"Oh, but hadn't we better send for the authorities?" asked Percy. "Or at least take a weapon," for Allen and the others had nothing in their hands.

"He's loony on the subject of weapons," grunted Roy.

Allen led the way down cellar, the girls and the servants not venturing, though Betty did want to go. But her mother kept her back.

A glance served to show that the diamonds were in the box, safe. As far as could be learned the intruders had not been near them.

"We'll bring them up, after the servants have gone to bed," Allen confided to his chums.

And when the maids had retired there was a sort of "council of war" among the others.

Opinion was divided as to whether the men were ordinary tramps, or perhaps sneak thieves, or whether they were after the diamonds.

"But how would they know they were down cellar?" asked Betty. "We are the only ones who know of the hiding place, and we haven't told anyone, except Percy."

"Oh, I never said a word!" Percy cried. Indeed he only heard the story of the find, after the scare.

"Of course if some men from this neighborhood hid the diamonds in the sand, and knew we girls took them out, and if they were around the house and heard something of the excitement the night papa took them down cellar, it would explain how they knew where to look for them," Betty said.

"Too many ifs," commented Allen. "Have there been any strangers around lately—tramps or anyone like that?"

At first Betty said there had been none, but later she recalled that a maid had reported to her that an undesirable specimen of a man had begged something to eat at the kitchen door the morning after Mr. Nelson had hid the diamonds down cellar.

"And," Betty said, "he may have been hanging around when father and Will left for Boston that day."

"But how could he know the stones were hidden down cellar?" asked Mollie.

"I don't know that he could tell that, exactly," Betty admitted, "but if you remember, as papa was going away he called back: 'Be sure to keep the cellar locked!' Don't you remember?"

"Yes, I heard that," Amy contributed.

"Well, if a tramp, who was not really a tramp, but some one in disguise, heard that he might jump to some conclusion," Betty went on.

"Too much jumping," Allen said. "As a matter of fact we're all in the dark about this."

"And it isn't a very pleasant suspense, either," declared Betty, as she looked at the black box with the diamonds safe in the secret compartment. "What are we going to do with that?"

"Hide it in a new place," suggested Henry.

That much was decided on, and the treasure was taken up to the attic, though there the danger of fire was ever present.

"Oh, I wish father were home," said Betty, a worried look on her face.

But it would be several days before Mr. Nelson could return, and those days were anxious ones indeed for the outdoor girls. The morning after the scare in the cellar inquiries were made, but no trace of the mysterious men was found.

"I can't stand this much longer!" declared Betty, one night. "I almost wish we'd never found the diamonds."

"You're nervous," said Mollie. "We've been too much in the house. To-morrow we shall try one of our old stunts—a picnic!"

"Good!" cried Grace. "That will be fun!"



CHAPTER XIX

THE PICNIC

"Did you bring plenty of olives?"

"And I do hope we didn't forget the cheese crackers!"

"Oh, everything is here—more than we'll eat, I think, by the weight of the baskets."

"Where did I put—oh, here they are!"

This last, with a sigh of relief, as she found her package of candy, came from Grace. Mollie, Amy and Betty had, in turn, been heard from in the aforequoted remarks.

"It's a glorious day; isn't it?" questioned Grace as she walked on beside Amy.

"Yes, but not so nice that you need forget you're carrying only a box of chocolates," remarked Betty, pointedly. "Take one of these baskets."

"Oh, excuse me," apologized Grace, and she turned quickly, wincing a bit as she did so.

"Those same ridiculous shoes!" cried Mollie.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Grace Ford."

"Why? They're the most comfortable ones I have, to go tramping about in, and they're so stained from the salt water that they can't be damaged any more. Just right for the picnic, I think."

"Yes, but you walk worse than a Chinese woman before the binding of feet was forbidden. Don't let her carry anything spillable, Betty, or we won't have all the lunch we count on," Mollie urged.

"Oh, is that so!" exclaimed Grace, with as near an approach to "snippiness" as she ever permitted herself.

"Oh, I'll carry the basket," said gentle Amy, always anxious to avoid a quarrel.

"You'll do nothing of the sort!" insisted Betty, who had, like the Little Captain she was, arranged the commissary department on lines she intended to see carried out.

"Oh, well, if we're going, let's go!" exclaimed Mollie. "We're wasting the best part of the day getting ready."

It was the day after Mollie had proposed that the outdoor girls go on a little picnic, and her plan had been enthusiastically adopted. As she had said, the affair of the diamonds was getting on the nerves of them all. They had stuck too close to the house, and there was a "jumpiness" and fault-finding spirit seldom manifested by the four chums.

They were to take their lunch, and spend the day on the beach, or in the scrubby woods, not far away, taking to a boat if they felt so inclined.

The boys had offered to take them out for a cruise in the Pocohontas, but the girls felt that they would rather be by themselves on this occasion.

Accordingly lunch baskets had been packed and now this glorious summer morning they were about to start. The boys, their kind offer refused, had gone off on a fishing jaunt—that is, all but Will, and he had not returned from Boston. Grace had a hasty note from him in which he stated that work connected with his new duties would keep him busy for a week or so, after which he hoped to join his friends at Edgemere.

"No news of a diamond robbery around Boston," he wrote, in a letter. "I've written to a fellow in New York about it, though. Sometimes the police keep those things out of the papers for reasons of their own. Maybe they think the robbers won't know the diamonds have been taken, if nothing is printed about it, at least that's the way it looks."

At any rate Will reported no news, and Mr. Nelson had pretty much the same story to tell. His wife had written to him about the men in the cellar, and he had advised getting some fisherman of the neighborhood to stay on guard every night, until he could come down to Ocean View again.

"We might get Old Tin-Back," suggested Betty.

"It would only make me nervous," her mother said. "I don't believe the men will bother us again."

"Well, they won't find the diamonds down cellar if they do pay us another visit," Betty had said. She had, after some thought, hidden the precious stones in her own room, wrapping the box in some sheets of asbestos, which Allen had left over after putting some on the muffler of the motor boat.

"The asbestos will protect the diamonds in case of fire," Betty said, "and I'll protect them in case of thieves. Anyhow, no one, not even the servants, know where they are, and it would take a good while to find them in my room."

For she had discovered an ingenious little hiding place for the mysterious black box.

The boys, after the scare of the men in the cellar, had offered to take the diamonds up to Boston, or some other city near Ocean View, and put them in the vault of some bank.

"But you might be robbed on the train, going up," objected Betty. "We'll keep them here until the secret is discovered. That will be the best thing to do."

"And that may never be," Allen had said, for he had long since given up the cipher. Nor had experts, to whom he had submitted it, been able to furnish a clue to its solution.

So, while the boys had gone out fishing in the motor boat, the girls prepared for their picnic, leaving the diamonds at home.

Percy Falconer had declined the boys' invitation to go fishing, and when Betty heard him say that he feared to go out on the water she had looked at her chums with hopeless despair on her face.

"What if he wants to come on the picnic with us?" she whispered to Grace.

"We—we'll run away from him!" had been the ultimatum. But Percy did not pluck up enough courage to trust himself, the only youth, with four girls.

"I'll go for a run in my car, and may pick you up and bring you back later," he said, with a glance at his wrist watch. He was still a guest at Edgemere.

"Well, let's start!" called Betty, and the four girls set off down the beach.

"Why are you going that way?" asked Grace, as Mollie and Betty, who had taken the lead, started along a certain path amid the sand dunes.

"Just for fun," answered Betty. "I have a fancy for looking again at the place where we found the diamonds."

"We can't seem to get rid of them, day or night—sleeping or waking," spoke Amy. "Isn't it dreadful how they follow one?"

"Well, I, for one, don't want to get rid of them," Mollie said, with a laugh. "They are far too pretty and valuable to lose sight of. Though of course I want whoever owns them to get his property back."

"Even those horrid men?" asked Grace.

"Well, if they have a right to the diamonds, the fact of their being horrid, as you call it, should not deprive them of the stones," Betty said.

"We ought to get a reward, anyhow," spoke Amy.

"That's right, little girl!" exclaimed Betty. "Well, I do wish it was settled, one way or the other. Having fifty thousand dollars' worth of diamonds, more or less, in one's possession isn't calculated to make one sleep nights. And I just would love one of those big sparklers in a ring. I think——"

But Betty did not complete her sentence. There was a rattling sound on the farther side of a sand dune around which the girls were just then making their way. Some gravel and shells seemed to be sliding down the declivity.

"What's that?" asked Grace, shrinking back against Betty.

"I don't know," answered the Little Captain. "Maybe the wind."

But it was not the wind, for, a moment later, the wrinkled face of the aged crone of the fisherman's cabin peered at the girls from over the rushes that grew in the sand hill.

"Oh, excuse me, my dears," she said in her cracked voice. "I didn't see you. Out for a walk again; aren't you, my dears? Won't you come up to my cottage, and have a glass of milk?"

"No, thank you," Betty answered, and she could not help being "short," as she said afterward. "We are going on a little picnic."

She swung around into another path between the dunes, and changed her mind about going to look at the hole near the broken spar, where the diamonds had been found.

"Oh, I wonder if she heard us?" whispered Mollie, as they lost sight of the old crone around the rushes and dunes.

"I hope not," said Betty, and her usually smiling face wore a worried look.



CHAPTER XX

CAUGHT

"That woman seems to—persecute us!" burst out Mollie, when the girls were well on their way again, out of range of the sand dunes, going down the beach where the salty air of the ocean and bay blew in their faces.

"Oh, hardly as bad as that," remarked Amy.

"Well, she always seems to be following us," insisted Mollie, "and I am positively tired of being asked to her cottage to drink milk."

"I'd never touch a thing she offered," said Betty. "I would be afraid it wouldn't be—clean."

"She always seems to leer at one so," went on Mollie.

"Oh, you're making out a terrible case against the old woman," Grace put in, carefully selecting a chocolate from her supply.

"Well, she is very persistent," observed Betty. "And now let's forget all about her, and the—well, I won't mention them, but you know what I mean," and she smiled at her chums. Indeed Betty was beginning to think she had been just a little indiscreet in speaking aloud of the precious stones.

"We'll just have a good outing, as we used to," she went on.

"Like the time when we found the five-hundred-dollar bill," suggested Amy.

"Or when the girl fell out of the tree," added Mollie.

"Gracious! Those were tragic times enough!" broke in Grace.

"But we enjoyed them—after they were over," added Betty. "And I think we shall enjoy finding—well, finding what we did find, after Allen straightens it out for us."

"Oh, is he going to straighten it out for us?" asked Mollie.

"Well, isn't he working hard on it?" Betty wanted to know.

"I thought Will was going to get us clues," Mollie went on. "Or your father?"

"Oh, of course they may find the owners, but they are waiting for something to be published in the papers."

"Well, is Allen doing any more?" Amy asked. "If he is he hasn't said anything to us about it, though of course you'd be the first one to hear of it, Betty," she said, innocently enough.

"I?" cried the Little Captain, with upraised eyebrows. "Why I, pray?"

"Oh, because you and Allen are——"

"That's enough!" laughed Mollie. "Spare her blushes, child!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Amy, in confusion.

"You needn't worry about me," said Betty, quickly. "What I meant was that Allen is working on a plan to solve the mystery."

"Has he told you all about it?" Grace wanted to know.

"Not all. We agreed that it would be better to say nothing to any one else about it until he was ready to act."

"Oh, of course," admitted Mollie. "The fewer the outsiders are who know about the—well, let's call them 'apples,' and then no one will suspect. The fewer who know about the 'apples' so much the better. But I do hope we each get one—'apple'—out of it," and she laughed.

"We ought to," returned Betty. She looked back toward the sand dunes, possibly for a sight of the old fishwife, but no one was in view.

The girls wandered on. The day was bright and beautiful, giving little hint of the tragic occurrence that was in the air. It was as if the outdoor girls were on one of the walking tours which they had instituted. The sand, however, was not conducive to rapid progress, and they were content to stroll idly.

They were now past the place where the diamonds had been found, though they were all anxious for a sight of the hole in the sand, to see if they could discover any signs that those who hid the precious stones there had come back to find their booty gone. But they did not think it wise to visit the place, with that queer old woman in the nearby sand dunes.

Now and then they would stop to pick up some prettier shell than usual, or to gather a few of the odd-shaped pebbles.

"They look just like that queer candy they sell in Tracey's," commented Grace, as she rattled a handful of the little stones of various colors, shapes and sizes.

"Oh, the pebble candy—yes," assented Mollie. "I wonder what they will imitate next?"

"Plenty of wood here for a marshmallow roast," commented Amy, a little later, as she idly kicked the bits of drift on the beach.

"Yes!" exclaimed Grace. "But we didn't bring any. I meant to, but——"

"She had so much other candy she couldn't carry marshmallows," interrupted Betty.

Grace threw a wisp of seaweed at her chum, but the Little Captain easily dodged it.

"I wonder if Percy will really come for us in the car?" asked Amy, after a pause.

"Do you want him to?" asked Betty, with a smile.

"I? No, indeed!" and Amy's face was suffused with a blush.

"Oh, well, don't get fussy about it," mocked Mollie. "We don't want him, either."

"He'd have trouble running his car through this sand," Grace said. "It's awfully deep and dry. Let's stop. When are we going to eat?"

"Eat?" cried Mollie.

"Eat?" echoed Amy. "Why we just had breakfast!"

"Eat?" spoke Betty, in a tone characterized as "dull and hopeless," in stories. "Why, Grace Ford, if you have done anything else but eat—candy—ever since we started on this picnic, I'd like to know it!"

Poor Grace looked a little startled at this combined attack on her.

"Why, I—I haven't done anything," she said, innocently enough. "I just asked when you were going to eat and you take me up as though I had proposed throwing those—'apples'—we found, into the sea."

"If you look back along the way you'll see at least three empty candy bags," declared Betty.

"Oh, well, they were little bags," protested Grace. "I had them put in small bags on purpose so I would know just how much I was eating."

"I don't believe you ever know how much candy you are eating," laughed Mollie. "Never mind, Grace, we all have our faults."

"We'll eat soon," promised Betty. "I want to get in the shade."

They strolled on, walking near the wet edge of the sand where the tide was coming in, for that section of the beach made firmer footing.

"There's a good place for our picnic," finally decided Mollie, as she saw a little clump of scrub evergreens which grew rather close to the water. "We can eat and have a fine view at the same time."

"Is that the boys' boat out there?" asked Mollie, as they made their way toward the bit of shade.

"No, that's a small schooner. It's been anchored there for some days," Betty said. "There's something queer about it, too."

"Something queer?" repeated Amy.

"Yes, the men in it don't seem to be gathering clams, which work all the other schooners are engaged in around here, and they're not net fishermen aboard her."

"Who told you that?" asked Mollie.

"Old Tin-Back. He notices anything odd about the boats. He said he passed her in his dory the other day, and some one yelled to him not to come too close."

"Why was that?" Grace asked.

"That's what Tin-Back didn't know. He thought it was very strange," Betty went on. "But come on, I know Grace must be—famished! Aren't you, my dear?"

The baskets were opened, and the contents spread out on a cloth on the sand. Grace reached for the bottle of olives.

"For an appetizer," she explained.

"You need it, after munching candy all the way here," commented Mollie.

And then, as they ate, the girls talked of many matters, now and then looking off toward the bay or ocean, whereon could be seen many vessels, mostly little clamming schooners, drifting with the wind on their squared sails, dragging the big rakes along the bottom. But the schooner of which Betty had spoken rose and fell at her anchor, and there was no sign of life aboard.

"This is just perfect," remarked Grace, as she found a comfortable position, leaning back against a tree. "Please don't disturb me, any one, I'm going to sleep."

"I believe I'll join you," added Mollie. "Salt air always makes me drowsy. Or perhaps it is the effect of the bright sun on the sand."

While Mollie and Grace closed their eyes, Betty dug idly in the sand, and Amy produced a handkerchief and a tiny embroidery frame and began initialling a corner.

"Virtuous girl," observed Betty. "You shame us all by your industry."

"It's only that I promised Henry I would put his initials on some new handkerchiefs he bought," Amy explained. "I must hurry and finish them, for he is going West on a trip soon."

"It's nice to have a brother," remarked Betty, idly.

She tossed some sand and little pebbles toward Grace, but the latter had actually gone to sleep, and the deep and regular breathing of Mollie proclaimed the same fact.

"Oh, I can't stand this!" the Little Captain cried, a few minutes later. "I want to do something. Let's go for a little walk, Amy, and let them sleep."

"All right."

"Will you go as far as the place where we found the—'apples'?" asked Betty, with a look around to be sure no stray fishermen were in the neighborhood.

"Yes, if you like."

"Then come on. I want to see if the men came back, and tried to find the box that was buried in the sand."

It was rather a longer walk than Betty had thought, but finally she and Amy came within sight of the lone fisherman's hut, and the log that lay on the edge of the hole in the sand, though the latter, so Betty expected, would be filled up by the action of the waves or wind ere this.

"I do hope that horrid old woman doesn't invite us in again," Betty remarked. "She is a—pest!"

The Little Captain and Amy were walking down the sands, in the midst of a number of high dunes, or hills.

"There's the place!" Betty said. "It doesn't seem to have been——"

A noise behind caused her to turn suddenly. A scream came to her lips, but it was choked off by the sudden forward rush of the old crone who roughly placed her withered hand over Betty's mouth.

"I—I've got her!" she croaked. At the same time a man caught Amy by the arm, and stifled her impending cry in the same manner.



CHAPTER XXI

ON THE SCHOONER

Betty Nelson was an unusually muscular girl. She and her outdoor chums had not lived so much in the open air for nothing, and taken long tramps and regular physical exercise. They had played basketball, tennis and golf, and though their arms looked pretty in evening dresses, there were muscles beneath those same beautifully tanned skins.

For a moment Betty was so surprised at the suddenness of the attack that she could do nothing. She had had but a momentary glimpse of the face of the old crone, and only for that she might have thought it was the boys, who had stolen up behind her and Amy, and had put their hands over their eyes to make them guess who had thus blinded them.

But in an instant Betty knew this was no friendly game. And so, as soon as she realized that, she began to struggle, and to some good purpose.

She managed to pull from her mouth the horrible, fishy-smelling hand of the old woman, and then Betty screamed as she endeavored to loosen the grip the old crone had on her arms.

"Help! Help!" screamed Betty. "Let me go! How dare you! What does this mean? Amy, where are you?" for Betty could not, for the moment, see her chum.

But poor Amy was not as muscular as Betty, nor did she have the advantage of battling against a woman, for a man had caught her, and held her in a cruel grip.

"Help! Help!" Betty cried again, struggling desperately.

"Be quiet! Be quiet, my little dear—little imp!" hissed the old woman, for Betty had struck her in the face. "Be quiet or I'll——"

"Can't you stop her screams?" roughly demanded the man. "She'll have some one buzzing down on us if you don't! Clap a stopper on her, or I'll——"

"You must be quiet, my dear!" hissed the old crone, struggling to infuse some measure of conciliation in her cracked voice. "Be quiet or——"

"I'll not! Let me go! How dare you! Help! Help!" screamed Betty, but, even as she called, she realized how hopeless it was, for she saw no one in sight and the thunder of the surf would not permit her cries to carry far. She tried to get a sight of Amy, but could not.

"Let me—let me——" panted Betty, and then, though she struggled with all her might, making the old woman pant and hiss to overcome her, Betty found herself being gradually exhausted. Again that horrid hand stole over her mouth, making her feel ill, and effectually shutting off her cries.

"Quick!" panted the old woman. "I can't hold her much longer. You'll have to tie her—or—something."

"I'll do something, all right!" said the man, significantly. He was having little trouble with poor Amy, who had yielded like some broken flower. "I'll just tie this one up, and then take care of her," the fellow went on.

Betty had a glimpse of his dark and brutal face and she shuddered. It was bad enough to have him touch Amy, and bad enough for the old fishwife to clasp Betty in her horrid arms, but Betty thought she surely would die if that man approached her.

She tried to speak—to say that she would not scream again if they would only tell what they wanted—take her purse and its contents—but only let her alone. But she could only mutter a meaningless jumble of sounds with that fishy hand over her mouth, pressing cruelly on her lips.

"Can you carry her, and keep her from screaming?" asked the man, who had pulled some cords from his pocket and was quickly tying Amy's hands. Then he fastened a rag over her mouth, and poor Amy, who came out of a half-faint, was too late to add her voice to Betty's.

"Carry her—no, she'll struggle like a cat!" muttered the old woman. "You'll have to help."

"Help! Haven't I got my hands full?" he demanded. "Where are some of the others? They ought to be back now. They knew this chance might come any time."

"They have been lying in wait for us," thought Betty. It was one of the many ideas that raced through her brain at express-train speed. "That is why this old woman wanted us to come to her hut."

"There's some one now!" exclaimed the man, leaning up from having put a cord around Amy's ankles as she lay on a sand hill.

"If it isn't some one she's brought by her yells," snarled the fishwife.

"No, it's Jake, thank goodness!" muttered the man, as a rough-looking specimen, the counterpart of himself, peered around a dune. "Get busy here, Jake, and truss up that other—cat!" the first man ordered.

"All right, Pete," was the answer. "Got any rope?"

"Here's some," and the one addressed as Pete kicked over some net-cord toward the newcomer.

Meanwhile Betty had desisted from her struggle to get loose. She was strong and wiry, but the old crone was more than a match for the Little Captain. The fisherman's wife seemed to know how to handle struggling persons, for she held Betty in a peculiar grip that was most effective. Bend and strain as Betty might, she could not break away, and that hand was still held over her mouth, preventing any further outcry.

"Just a minute now, Mag, and I'll have her safe," went on Jake, as, with practiced hands he whipped several coils of cord around Betty's wrists and ankles.

"Stop! Stop!" she implored as the woman's hand was taken from her mouth for a second. It was poor Betty's last chance to appeal, for, an instant later, a fold of ill-smelling cloth was put over her lips, and she was effectually gagged. Tears of shame, rage and fear came into her eyes.

"Now you can carry her, without any trouble," announced Jake, rising.

"Take 'em up to the shack," ordered Pete. "Then tell the others to get the boat ready."

Betty wondered what that meant. Were they to be kidnapped? She tried to look at Amy, but could not see her just then.

A moment later she felt herself being lifted up between the two men. It was useless to struggle.

Amy was much lighter than Betty, and was hoisted up to the shoulder of the old crone, who seemed wonderfully strong.

"Take a look out, Mag, and see if any one's in sight before we make a dash for the shack," directed Pete. "Her screams may have been heard. She yelled like a banshee!"

The fishwife, carrying the limp figure of Amy, peered beyond the line of sand dunes.

"No one in sight," she muttered, beckoning the others to advance.

"But what gets me is where the other two are," growled Pete who, with Jake, was carrying Betty. "There's four of 'em, and they've always been together ever since they come down here. Where are the other two? That's what I'd like to know."

Betty shuddered as she thought of Mollie and Grace sleeping in the little clump of trees. Suppose these horrid men should go back there and find them. It was horrible to contemplate.

"Well, you've got half of 'em. That ought to be enough for what you want," said Jake, hoarsely chuckling.

Betty was puzzling her brains, trying to think why she and Amy had been thus captured. What object had the old fisherman and, too, why had the old crone been so eager to get them to her hut? Betty could only guess. Her head ached. She felt really ill, and could not doubt but that poor Amy was in like condition.

A few seconds later they were both carried into the hut, and set in rickety chairs. Their bonds were not removed, and the door was closed and locked. Amy looked over at Betty, and the latter could see that her chum's eyes were filled with tears.

Then, suddenly, Amy seemed to collapse. She slipped from the chair to the floor.

"Now what's up?" roughly demanded Pete. "I wish I'd never gone into this girl business, anyhow—it's so uncertain. What's happened?" and he looked at the limp form of Amy on the floor.

Betty tried to rise, but sank back dizzily. The room seemed to become suddenly dark. She feared she would topple over as Amy had done.

"It's only a faint, the poor dear," chuckled the old woman. "I'll attend to her. You go out and get the boat ready," she told the two men.

Betty's brain became clearer. There was no longer blackness before her eyes.

"Here, drink this," said the woman, raising Amy by her shoulders, and holding a glass of water to her lips. The gag had been removed. Amy drank and a little color came into her face.

"Where—where am I? What happened?" she faltered.

"Nothing, dearie," said the hoarse voice of the crone. "You'll be all right soon. You're just going to stay with me a little while—you and your friend. You won't suffer a bit of harm, if you tell us what we want to know. You'll be well taken care of."

Betty began to see a light now. She wished the gag might be taken from her lips, and water given her, but the old woman was busy with Amy. The girl closed her eyes again, and seemed too weak to cry out, even though the rag was not again bound across her lips.

There sounded voices outside the cabin, and a knock on the door.

"Drat 'em," muttered the old woman. "A body would need four hands to attend to all that's to be done."

She laid Amy back on the floor, and hobbled across the room to unbar the door. Betty was frantically struggling to loosen the bonds that held her hands behind her back.

"The boat's ready," gruffly said Jake, as he and Pete were admitted to the shack.

"That's good," muttered the old crone. "We can take care of 'em easier when we get 'em out of here. We don't care if they do yell then. Wait until I tie up this one's mouth. She may rouse up enough to make a racket."

Poor, half-senseless Amy was again gagged. Betty had given up trying to loosen her bonds. Those men knew how to tie knots.

And then, as before, Betty was carried down to the shore and placed in a boat. Amy was brought down on the shoulders of the old woman, who also got in the boat with the captured girls.

"Now row out," she ordered the man. They were on the bay side, where there was no surf, so the boat was easily pushed out. The men leaped in and began pulling on the long oars. Betty could see them heading for the mysterious schooner, and, a little later she and Amy were lifted on board that vessel.

"Up anchor!" came the command from some one, and, an instant later, the vessel was in motion.

Poor Betty wished she could do as Amy had done, and faint.



CHAPTER XXII

THE SEARCH

Grace Ford slowly opened her eyes. Grace seldom did anything in a hurry, not even awakening, and on this occasion, after the little doze that hot summer day, in the grove by the seashore, she was even more dilatory than usual in bringing all her faculties into play.

Lazily enough she glanced over at Mollie, who was still asleep. Grace felt a little sense of elation that she was awake before her friend. She did not look around for Betty or Amy, but, picking up a small pebble, tossed it in Mollie's direction.

Straight and true it went, alighting on the sleeper's nose, which, in spite of the assurance of her friends, Mollie felt was always likely to be classed as "slightly pug."

"Score one for me!" laughed Grace, still lazily, as Mollie sat up with a start. There was nothing slow about Mollie, waking or sleeping.

"What is it? Oh, you! Did you throw that?" she asked, rubbing her nose, on which a little red spot had been raised. Feeling a sting there Mollie opened her bag and gave a hasty glance at the little mirror hidden in one flap.

"You mean thing!" she cried. "And you know how sensitive my skin is!" By this time Mollie had glanced around her, something which Grace had not yet done.

"Why—why," Mollie exclaimed. "Where is Betty—and Amy?"

"Oh, probably off somewhere indulging in athletic stunts for fear they'll lose their figures on account of eating so much lunch," remarked Grace, reaching out her hand toward a box that had held some chocolate almonds.

"But they're not in sight!" declared Mollie. She rose to her feet, and glanced rapidly up and down the beach. "I can't see them anywhere," she went on. "They—could they have gone back and left us sleeping here?"

"Well, we certainly were sleeping," admitted Grace, with a smile that was lazy—like her drawling words.

"Oh, do be sensible—for once!" exclaimed Mollie, and her tones had a snap to them that made Grace sit up and fairly gasp.

"Why, whatever is the matter, Billy?" she asked in aggrieved accents. "I haven't done anything. And just because Betty and Amy aren't here——"

"That's just it—where are they?" asked Mollie, sharply.

"How should I know?" returned Grace, determined not to be conciliated so easily. "They went off for a walk while we were asleep, I suppose."

"Yes, but unless they went a long distance we ought to be able to see them," Mollie went on. "And they're not in sight—you can see for yourself."