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.