Swiftly he set down the five rows of letters, thus:
E E A N N R D B O E U N R
Y W S E U T T E R O N S N
N F E E I A Y W M N V T T
A S A N X J U L E I G O K
W S N V A T Y I Z L E T K
Eagerly he ran his eye down the columns of letters, as he had become accustomed to doing with the old cipher, but the letters were unintelligible. Next he read the letters across the rows, but with no better result. The eager look faded from his eyes.
"I'll have to try the other," he said, and began to make his letters into rows of five each, thus:
E E A N N
R D B O E
U N R Y W
S E U T T
E R O N S
N N F E E
I A Y W M
N V T T A
S A N X J
U L E I G
O K W S N
V A T Y I
Z L E T K
With renewed eagerness he ran his eye down the first column. "E-R-U-S-E-N-I-N——" he began, then stopped short in disgust. "Nothing doing that way," he muttered.
Then he read the letters across the rows: "E-E-A-N-N——"
"They've got me stopped," he said. And he threw down his pencil and sat staring at the paper before him, twisting the letters into every shape he could think of, but to no avail.
Meantime each of the other members of the patrol was going through much the same process. Lew gave up first, acknowledging himself beaten. Henry sat scowling and working away industriously. Dr. Hardy tried first one combination of letters, then another, but in vain. Willie had laid out the letters in exactly the same way Roy had. But Willie worked differently from any boy in the group. The rest had been feverishly setting down letters as new combinations presented themselves to their minds, whether the combinations seemed logical or not. Willie first arranged his letters in the long rows and sat for many minutes looking intently at them.
At Camp Brady it was Willie who had learned, better than any other member of the patrol, the lesson of observation. When the patrol was practising scouting, which is only another name for close observing, Willie had sat for hours studying the landscapes, even when his fellows teased him. Thus he had learned to see everything within sight and make note of it. And when a guide was needed later, to conduct a party through the midnight woods in quest of the dynamiters' lair, Willie was the scout who was able to do it. He had observed perfectly and so carefully noted what he saw that even in the darkness he could find his way.