He secured the bottle from the squaw for what seemed to him in his eagerness a ridiculously small amount, while she in her turn thought the young Hot-ka-tee (white man) must be crazy to give so much for it, although to be sure, she esteemed it a valuable possession.
With a heavy stone Frank cracked the neck off his purchase and eagerly shook out the note it contained. What he expected to find even he scarcely knew, but the bottle and its hidden message had appealed strongly to the boy’s nature,—in which there was a strong dash of imaginative mingled with the practical sense that had enabled him to carry so many adventures to a successful issue.
The paper was crumpled up and it took a good deal of smoothing out before Frank could read the few faintly pencilled lines that were on its surface. After much puzzling, however, he made out:
“Th-y a —— tak—g m-,” then there was a long blank that exposure had obliterated. The next legible words were: “to the ’glades. ——stole——ret of——ite. Send help.”
C-----p—n, U. S. N.
For a few seconds the full significance of the words did not penetrate Frank’s brain. The gaps puzzled him and he did not pay much attention to the general significance of the screed. Suddenly, however, the full meaning of his find fairly leaped at him from the page.
The letter had been written by the missing Lieutenant Chapin.
There could be no doubt of it. Reconstructed the letter read:
“They are taking me into the ’glades. They stole the secret of Chapinite. Send help. Chapin, U. S. N.”
Wildly excited over his discovery Frank’s shout brought his companions round him in a minute. Hastily he explained his find. The sensation it created may be imagined. Here was the first definite news of the missing man discovered by an extraordinary chance in the camp of a band of outcast moonshiners.