say so," exclaimed George. "Weren't we stupid?"

"I don't know," said Grant. "The simplest things are often the hardest
to explain. Of course when you get the key the rest is easy enough."

"According to this code then," said Fred, "one, two, three would be
_a, b, c_. Is that right?"

"Yes," said Grant, "and twenty-four, twenty-five and twenty-six would be
_x, y, z_."

"I see," exclaimed Fred. "You couldn't have a number higher than
twenty-six in this code then, could you?"

"Of course not. There are only that many letters in the alphabet, you
see."

"How did you ever happen to think of it, Grant?"

"Well, I guess I'd thought of about everything else possible," laughed
Grant. "When I heard Pop talking about teaching his parrot the alphabet
and somebody said there were twenty-six letters in it, I got an idea all
of a sudden. I knew those figures backwards and forwards and I
remembered that twenty-five was the highest number in it. That would
mean that twenty-six stood for the letter z, but that is so uncommon
anyway that it didn't seem strange that it should be missing. It was a
new idea and it struck me right away as being a good one."

"It certainly was," exclaimed George. "We ought to give you a medal,
Grant."

"Wouldn't a gold piece do?" laughed Fred.

"It sho' would suit me," grinned Sam. "Ah does want one ob dem dere
diamon' ho'seshoes, dough."

"Well, when you get enough gold pieces you can buy one," said Grant.
"Don't you think your friends back home would be jealous of you though?"
and he winked slyly at his companions.

"Ah suttinly does hope so," exclaimed Sam heartily. "Dey's a lot of good
fo' nothin' no 'count niggers anyhow."

"Would you work any more if you had a lot of money?" asked George.

"Work!" exclaimed Sam disdainfully. "Hello, dere, foolish! What yo'
think Ah am anyhow? To' must think Ah'm plumb crazy," and Sam looked
pityingly at George. "Ob co'se Ah wouldn't nebber lif' mah han' agin."

"Don't you think you'd get tired of doing nothing?" laughed George.

"Jes' lemme try it onct," and Sam snorted at the idea of any one being
so silly as to work unless he was compelled to do so.

"Well, I hope you do get rich, Sam," exclaimed John, "and I hope all the
rest of us do too."

"Dis am de place fo' it," said Sam confidently. "Jes' think how many
people would gib dere eyes jes' to fin' dis yere island."

"Finding the island wouldn't do them much good unless they knew where to
look