se. They knew one another
too well and all had too much sense for any such foolishness. In
particular they all liked to tease and threaten Pop Sanders, though in
any contest of wits he usually held his own and the threats of his
comrades had no effect upon him whatever.

"For the third and last time, who told you?" demanded Grant.

"Petersen told me."

"You've been talking to the Finn, have you?" exclaimed Fred.

"Yes, and he's a nice fellow, too."

"Maybe you'll get his hard luck away from him," laughed Grant.

"I guess he's had hard luck himself all right," said Pop seriously.
"That doesn't mean he'll give it to others though."

"What hard luck has he had?" asked John.

"Well, his father died when he was a baby and he was left with a big
family of children to be brought up by his mother. She had no money and
of course had an awfully hard time of it. Two of his sisters died of
scarlet fever, a younger brother was drowned and finally his mother got
pneumonia and she died. I call that pretty tough luck myself."

"So do I," agreed Grant readily.

"If Sam heard all those things he'd surely say it was because it was a
family of Finns," said Fred. "He'd say they brought hard luck to one
another."

"He probably would," laughed Pop. "Still I feel sorry for a fellow who
has had all that trouble."

"What did his father do?" asked John.

"He was a bad character principally, I guess," said Pop. "He was also a
sailor at times."

"You must have had quite a long talk with Petersen, Pop," said Grant.
"How did he happen to get so confidential?"

"I don't know. We just got talking, that's all, and the first thing I
knew he began to tell me the story of his life."

"His father left the family no money, I imagine," said Fred.

"Certainly not. He left debts. The only thing he left was a bad
reputation and this thing which Petersen gave to me," and as he spoke
Pop reached in his hip pocket and brought out what appeared to be a
dirty piece of old paper, folded up.

"What's that?" demanded Grant quickly.

"I don't know," said George. "See for yourself."

He handed the object in question to Grant who straightway unfolded it
and glanced at it eagerly.

"It's nothing but a lot of numbers," he exclaimed disappointedly.

"I know it," said George. "Just a lot of old faded numbers written on a
piece of parchment."

"What's it supposed to be?" asked John curiously.

"Petersen thinks it's some sort of a code. Maybe it is