“It’s all news to me, old boy. Go on.”
“Why, there’s nothing more. If I could hear those words repeated several times I reckon I’d get most of the letters—and get them straight.”
“I see,” murmured his friend. “And as it is, you have got a good many of the words, only you haven’t noticed it.”
“What’s that?”
“Why, it is plain,” said Whistler, “that several of the same words are used in both messages.”
“Yes. ‘Help’, ‘Colodia’, ‘Redbird’.”
“More than those,” said Whistler. “See! You have ‘seized’ plain as the nose on your face in the second set of letters.”
“I see that.”
“And there it is in the first list,” and Whistler pointed as he spoke to a combination of letters and blanks almost immediately following “Colodia—Help—Get.” “There is ‘s-e-i-z-ed’, plain enough. And, yes, by Jove! There is ‘redbird’ in the second message. Look here, old man! Let me go through this.”
“That is what I want you to do,” responded Belding excitedly.