y's mother, with a smile. "You two boys may wade
in, and Sue and I will watch you. But maybe the box will be too heavy
for you."

"Oh, no!" exclaimed Bunny, as Harry began taking off his shoes and
stockings. "Things in the water move easy. I can push or pull a big boat
all alone, if it's in the water, but I can't if it's on land. And the
box isn't very big."

"I wonder what's in it," said Sue, as her brother and Harry prepared to
wade out. "Maybe it's a lot of dolls from China."

"What makes you think it might be that?" asked Mrs. Slater, as she put
the boys' shoes and stockings up on the sand.

"Once some Chinese dolls came ashore at Bellemere," said Sue. "I got
one, but her eyes were washed out. I always had to make believe she was
asleep."

"How did they happen to come ashore?" asked Mrs. Slater.

"A ship that was coming from China got wrecked," explained Sue, "and the
boxes with the dolls in washed up on shore. But I guess this isn't a
doll box," she added.

"It doesn't look so," said Harry's mother. "It seems to be a very heavy
case, such as machinery comes in, but of course there can't be machinery
in it, or it would sink."

"And there can't be a dog in it, or he'd smother," added Sue, "'cause
the cover is nailed on tight."

The box was near the point of land now, and Bunny and Harry were wading
out to get it. Mrs. Slater and Sue could see that the box was a square
one, about three feet long, and as many high and wide. And there was a
cover on it.

"Catch hold now!" cried Bunny to Harry, and the two boys took hold of
the sides of the box and easily guided it up to the beach. It soon
grounded in the shallow water, but it was so heavy that when Bunny and
Harry had got it to the shore of the point of land they could move it no
farther.

"It's nailed tight shut all around," Bunny said, as he looked on all
four sides.

"Ain't there a cover that you can put back like on a trunk?" Sue wanted
to know.

"No, there ain't," answered Harry, "for if there was the hinges would
show--they always do."

"Oh, what do you think can really be in it?" cried Sue, dancing around
in excitement.

"Maybe it's a boat chest of some sort," suggested Bunny, who had heard
Captain Ross speak of such things.

"From China?"

"Oh, I guess it couldn't come from as far away as that."

"Course it couldn't," declared Harry.

"Children, I think we have made quite a find," said Mrs. Slater, as she
looked carefully at the box.