“No! You must listen now.”
Sandy wanted desperately to go to sleep, but he wouldn’t let himself give in. Slowly, forcing each word out of his mouth as though it weighed several pounds, he repeated the message to Cavanaugh as well as he could remember it.
“Good Lord!” Hall gasped. “This changes the whole picture. I must call Ken!”
He rushed to the telephone while Sandy’s eyelids closed in spite of his efforts to keep them open. He just had to have a few minutes’ sleep.
White’s arrival at the cottage jerked him awake again. The Agent was wearing heavy boots and carried a pair of binoculars slung over his pudgy shoulder.
“What’s all this, John?” he demanded. “I was just leaving from the Rock when you called. I sent off an inquiry to the Department of Interior immediately, of course. Then this message came in from San Francisco. That’s what took me so long getting here. The message is for you, Sandy.”
“Read it to me, please,” the boy said. “I’m too weak to lift a finger.”
White ripped open the yellow envelope, got out his glasses, and read:
FINALLY GOT HERE STOP NEWSPAPER FILES SHOW THERE WAS CAVANAUGH ON STATE TEAM IN 1930 WHO MADE ALL-AMERICAN STOP BUT HE WAS CALLED BRICK NOT RED STOP ALL SPORTS PAGE STORIES ON BIG GAME SAY HE MADE FOUR TOUCHDOWNS REPEAT FOUR TOUCHDOWNS AGAINST CALIFORNIA STOP QUIZ TAYLOR
“Aw shucks,” Pepper said disgustedly. “That proves our Cavanaugh isn’t an impostor after all.”