“All ready?” said John.
“Go ahead,” and this is what John read:
“20-1-11-5-1-3-15-21-18-19-5-4-21-5-14-15-18-20-8-15-14-15-18-21-14-4-18-5-4-6-5-5-20-6-18-15-13-20-8-5-19-15-21-20-8-5-18-14-5-24-20-18-5-13-9-20-25-15-6-19-8-1-18-11-18-15-3-11-20-8-5-14-5-1-19-20-6-9-6-20-25-6-20-25-6-5-5-20-1-14-4-14-15-18-20-8-2-25-5-1-19-20-20-8-9-18-20-25-20-8-18-5-5-4-9-7.”
“Exactly the same,” announced Grant when John had finished. “Now what do you think about that?”
“I believe it’s a code which tells where some pirates have buried treasure,” announced Fred decidedly. “I also believe that this is the island where it was done. How else do you account for our finding that duplicate in the chest here?”
“It’s strange all right,” said George. “I can explain it all in a different way, though.”
“What’s that?” asked Grant curiously.
“Just this. Suppose all those numbers do make up a code and that they do give the key to some treasure or something. Isn’t it possible that the treasure was once in this empty chest, and some one found it and took it away? Evidently there were at least two people in the secret, as the two codes show. One of them got here first and took it away and as long as he had no more use for the code he left it. Doesn’t that sound reasonable?”
“Yes, it does,” Fred admitted. “It’s not very cheerful, though, and I hope you are wrong about it.”
“I hope so, too,” exclaimed George heartily. “It’s just as well to look at both sides, though.”