The Secret Of The Lost Tunnel Part 13

The boys turned their eyes from the officer to a table on which he spread the paper.

"Look at that!" Joe exclaimed. "It's in code."

On the sheet was scrawled a series of numbers and across the face of the message, written diagonally, were the large letters, C S A. As if that were not cryptic enough, two odd designs decorated the bottom of the page at either side. On the left were three muskets, stacked together like a sheaf of wheat. On the right was a queer-looking tree, at the base of which rested a round object.

"What a puzzler!" Chet said. "It'll take all year to figure this one out."

Frank thrust his fingers back through his darls hair. Joe knew he was concocting an idea.

"I'd suggest," said his brother, "that we all sit down separately and work on this. When we have some ideas, we'll get together."

139 "Very good," the general said. "Let's make four rough sketches so we can each work on one."

This was done. Then the boys and the officer, their brows knit in deep thought, pondered the secret in the ancient message. The room was so quiet that the ticking of the clock sounded like a noisy metronome.

Suddenly Chet chuckled and burst out, "I've got it!"

After half an hour of deep concentration, the boy's exclamation came as a blessed relief.

"Let's hear it," Joe said, grinning. "Probably another one of your brain storms."

Chet spread himself like a peac.o.c.k. "It's this way," he said, winking at the general. "The C S A stands for 'Can't Stand the Army.' The guns stacked up means they're going to stop fighting and sit down under that tree and eat ham and eggs. That big round thing's an egg."

The general and the Hardys burst into laughter.

"I knew plenty of privates who couldn't stand the army," General Smith said with a smile.

Then Joe asked, "What about the numbers?"

With a wave of his hand, Chet said, "That's just to confuse us!"

When they composed themselves, Frank said: "Chet, I can't agree with all ot your deductions*

140 but the one about the tree-maybe you've got some thing there!"

"Yes," Joe added, "the tree probably marks the spot for something or other. Now let's get back to figuring this out again."

A few minutes later a sudden glow lighted Frank's face. He reached inside his jacket for a pencil, and began to write down figures on a piece of scratch paper. He had barely finished working out a series of letters and numbers when he shouted: "This is it!"

CHAPTER XVIII.

Digging for Gold.

with the others crowding around, Frank showed what he had done.

"I took the C S A to mean Confederate States America," he said.

"I figured that far, too," General Smith remarked.

"Where does that get you?" Chet asked skeptically.

Frank followed the procedure with the point of his pencil. The numbers on the message were written in four rows: 42236, 12223, 223, and 222123.

"The first figure four stands for the fourth letter in Confederate States America," Frank explained, "That's F. The twenty-second letter is I, the third letter is N, and the sixth is D."

"That spells 'Find,' " Joe said eagerly, 141.

142 "Find what?" Chet was still doubtful of the code breaking.

"The rest is easy," Frank continued.

He reeled off the other numbers in the sequence; some, one digit at a time, others in pairs. Spelling the letters out as he went, and with the eyes of his onlookers popping in amazement, the boy read the message: Find coin in iron.

"That's a grand piece of code breaking," General Smith complimented. "Army Intelligence could use you!"

"Find coin in iron," Chet babbled. "Come on! All there is to do is find some iron with the coin in it!"

"We have to fathom these other symbols, too," Frank reminded the others. "What do you make of the muskets, the tree, and that round thing, Joe?"

"My guess would be," his brother replied, "that those symbols tell us where the iron is."

"Near some old Civil War muskets," Chet ventured.

"Or under a tree," General Smith said. Then he added with a puzzled expression, "That's a queer-looking tree. Don't believe I ever saw one like it."

"I still think that round thing's an egg," Chet persisted.

143 "Looks to me," Joe observed, "as if we're still behind the eight ball so far as finding the treasure is concerned. 'Find coin in iron' can mean a dozen different things."

"That's right," Frank agreed. "It might mean " that the money is buried in an iron box, or hidden in an iron mine, or in an old forge."

Chet scratched his head. "Where do we go from here? Gosh, I thought this code would lead us right to the hidden gold."

"If the gold were concealed in iron," Joe suggested, "it might be in an old blacksmith shop. They had one on the plantation, didn't they, General Smith?"

"Yes," the officer replied. "Every big plantation had a blacksmith shop. I have an old map here of the Smith place. We'll take a look."

He pulled it from a desk drawer, and the Hardys eagerly scanned it. The map was an antiquated form of a blueprint, drawn on heavy linen paper and ; well preserved. The layout of the buildings was clearly delineated, with the tiny, handwritten letters Blacksmith Blacksmith barely barely discernible at the spot where the old building had stood.

The Hardys were eager to investigate the spot at once, even work through the night, but their host would not hear of it.

144 "Morning will be time enough," he said. "Now that we know that our enemies don't have the secret there's no need for such speed. Furthermore, maybe the police will have rounded up the men by then and we won't have to worry about them spying on us."

The Hardys had to admit he had a good point but still doubted that the gang would be caught easily. Claude, hearing the story, declared he would stay up all night and guard the house against an attack by the thieves. It was finally decided that the boys would stay on watch until one o'clock, then the orderly would take over.

That evening Chet outdid himself at dinner, although Frank and Joe ran him a close second and third on Claude's superb bird pie and pecan pudding. All was peaceful during the night, and early the next morning the boys and the general were ready to start for the old plantation.

Before leaving, the officer called the police to inquire if any of the gang had been caught. He was told that the thickly wooded area was being combed and all highways were being watched, but so far the gang was still at large. The abandoned black sedan had been identified as the property of a man who lived lived in the next town to Bayport. in the next town to Bayport.

"A beautiful day," the general observed as they 145 drove along, "but we'll have to be on the watch every moment."

"Not like the day when Beauregard Smith hid the fortune," Frank said, "with the distant thunder of artillery and the smell of powder in the air."

"Cut it out," Chet protested. "You guys give me the creeps. I expect to see a g-ghost pop out from behind one of those trees any minute!"

"Don't worry," Joe teased. "Ghosts scoot back to their graves at sunup. They won't be abroad again until it's dark. Maybe if we stay long enough-"

"Here we are," Frank said, stepping on the brake and turning the car wheels into the rutted lane that led to the plantation. Presently he pulled up in front of the weed-grown foundation of the old mansion itself. As they got out, the general Mid: "Let's go directly to the blacksmith shop."

They strode through the high gra.s.s toward the spot the blueprint had indicated as the plantation's horseshoeing and repair shop.

"This is the place," the general confirmed. He paced off the distance from the site of the barn.

"Nothin' here but a lot of rocks," Chet said. "How are you going to find anything in this mess?"

"Put your camera down," Frank suggested. "It'll swing against one of those stones and get smashed."

"That means you want me to work," Chet said 146 ruefully as he took the hint and removed the camera from around his neck.

Frank winked at his brother. "Full of deductions, isn't he, Joe?"

"Let's get at this pile," the younger Hardy suggested, pointing to a heap of crumbling masonry.

In order to avoid a surprise visit by their enemies, General Smith said they would take turns standing guard. He would start.

The three boys pulled and hauled, removing stone after stone as they delved deeper into the ruins of the old blacksmith shop. General Smith walked around and around the spot, keeping an eye out for Dr. Bush or any of his men. Once he stopped and remarked: "I gather from the old blueprint that the walls o the shop v tc ten feet high. When the place was burned, I suppose the walls fell in under a bombardment, so whatever was inside is at the bottom of this srubble. I wonder when it was built."

Joe triumphantly ran his hand over the face of a rough brown stone. "Here's the cornerstone."

The date cut into it had become partly filled with dirt, but when Joe cleaned the crevices with his pocketknife, the bold date, 1780, came into view.

"Wow! This is as old as Methu-Methuselah!" Chet exclaimed as the sweat ran down his forehead aund off the end of his stubby nose.

147 "Methuselah?" Joe said, laughing. "He was 969 years old."

"It's going to take us that many years to find anything here," Chet moaned, straining at another stone.

Nevertheless, Chet stuck to the job at hand and the four worked with silent intensity as the sun rose higher and higher. Finally the brigadier called a halt, and the group sat down to eat the lunch Claude had packed for them. After a rest period, during which one of them remained on guard every moment, work started again.

"Here's a handle," Frank said an hour later, grasping a woodrn pole that extended out of the ruins.

"That must be part of the forge," the general called excitedly. He was standing guard at the moment.

"Then we're getting close!" Joe exclaimed.

Further digging disclosed the rest of the forge. Somewhat later Joe came upon the anvil, which was so heavy it took the concerted efforts of the four to lift it.

"Do you suppose the gold's in this?" Chet asked.

"No," Frank replied. "This is a solid piece of iron and has been well used, if the dents in it are any indication."

As he spoke, Joe shouted, "Here's an old gun!"

"Now we're getting somewhere!" Frank cried ex148 citedly, recalling the stacked weapons on the coded message.

Feverishly the boys dug near the spot where the rusty old musket had been exhumed.

They were doomed to disappointment, but kept on digging.

At four o'clock, when Chet was about to say they would have to carry him home on a stretcher, his hand suddenly struck something hard and smooth. He dug at it like a bulldog after a buried bone.

"I've got the box!" he shouted.

Out of the earth stuck an iron container two feet square.

"Here's the gold!" he cried out.

CHAPTER XIX.

Atom Crackers.

"where's the gold?" Joe cried, rus.h.i.+ng to Chet's side, as the youth tried to lift the box up and set it on the ground.

"I'll help you open it," General Smith offered, excited as a boy.

The officer picked up a flat stone, and with a mighty swinging blow, knocked off one of the rusty hinges. Chet pulled up the lid, as the others looked on, holding their breath in antic.i.p.ation.

Inside the box were a dozen heavy horseshoes!

"Gosh," Chet said, a pout of disappointment thrusting his lower lip forward. "Why would any body put horseshoes in a strongbox?"

"Just for luck." Joe grinned.

"Maybe they were used as weights," Frank sug gested. "Let's see what's underneath them."

149.