And I think somehow our friend Skeel got in touch with him, and secured one of the copies to work on.”

“But I can’t see the good of just a plan,” spoke Dick.

“I can only surmise, of course,” went on Tom, “but it seems to me that what Skeel intends to do is this: He will look at the plan, and from his knowledge of mathematics he’ll try to figure out the most likely place for a secret chamber, where treasure would be apt to be put. That would be more logical than digging here and there at random in the walls, with the risk of bringing them down.”

“That’s so!” exclaimed Jack. “But what if the stuff was buried somewhere outside the mill, Tom?”

“That’s different, of course. I don’t see any directions on this plan for digging in the grounds about the mill. It may be that there is another paper—a sort of map—that the hermit has, and if he doesn’t find the fortune in the mill he’ll have a try in the grounds—the same as others have had. But as all we have is this plan, we’ll work on that.”

Once more they fell to studying the paper, but[102] they could not seem to get anywhere. The plan gave them no more clew than any blueprint of a modern building would have done. The walls were shown, the partitions, the location of the doors, windows, and various pieces of mechanism, but that was all.

[102]

“Maybe those words and figures, that seem to refer to the building, are a sort of cypher,” suggested Bert.

“Maybe,” admitted Tom. “I didn’t think of that. How do you work out one of these cyphers, anyhow?”

“I know a couple of ways,” said Jack, and they tried his method, but they only got a lot of meaningless words and figures, though they sat up until nearly midnight.

“It’s no good!” exclaimed Tom regretfully. “Let’s go to bed, and have another try to-morrow. I’m dead tired.”

They all were. So they turned in, after making a campfire blaze that they hoped would at least glow until dawn. Nothing disturbed their slumbers, and in the morning, after breakfast, they again began studying the map.

They were forced to give it up, however, and Tom in desperation exclaimed:

“We’ll just put this away for a few days, until we get another chance to visit the mill. Then 

 Prev. P 61/132 next