“Peculiar? Why, I dunno. Somehow it don’t sound just like Dick, though I’ll swear it’s his writing. I know his writing.”
“Yes, I am certain it is his writing; still, the first part of it sounds peculiar. I suppose that’s because he was ordered to write certain things and had to take them down from dictation. But look here, Brad,” Merry continued, taking the letter from the Texan’s hand. “Notice that word, ‘sta.y.’ Why do you suppose he dropped a period into the midst of it?”
“Accident,” said Brad. “Must have been.”
Frank shook his head.
“Somehow I don’t think so,” he declared. “Somehow there seems to me there is a hidden meaning in this letter. I am half inclined to believe it is a cipher letter.”
“Gee whilikins!” cried the Texan. “Mebbe that’s so!”
Together they puzzled over it a long time, and the Texan grew more and more excited. Finally he shouted:
“Let me have it, Frank—let me have it! That’s why he wanted you to show it to me. See, he says for you to show it to me. He opined I’d tumble to the cipher and read it all right.”
The boy’s hands were shaking as he held the letter. From head to feet he quivered with the excitement he could not control.
“Steady, Buckhart,” said Merry, laying a calming hand on his shoulder. “Then you believe there is a cipher in it, do you?”