es longer to make sure that it would not resume, the boys took off
their headphones and gazed at each other in utter bewilderment.

"Well, I'll be blessed!" exclaimed Joe. "That villain Cassey, of all men
on the face of the earth! What do you make of it, Bob?"

"I don't know what to make of it," confessed Bob. "It has simply knocked
me endways. I never thought to hear of that rascal again for the rest of
my life. Yet here he is, less than a year after he's been sentenced,
talking over the radio."

"Perhaps he's received a pardon," hazarded Jimmy.

"Not at all likely," answered Bob. "It isn't as though he were a first
offender. He's old in crime. You remember the raking over the judge gave
him when he sentenced him. Told him if he had it in his power he'd give
him more than he actually did. No, I think we can dismiss that idea."

"Isn't it possible," suggested Herb, "that he's employed as radio
operator in the prison? He understands sending and receiving all right."

"That doesn't strike me hard either," Bob objected. "Likely enough the
prison is equipped with a wireless set, but it isn't probable that
they'd let a prisoner operate it. It would give him too good a chance to
get in touch with confederates outside the jail. Then, too, his
stuttering would make him a laughing stock.

"The only explanation that I can see," he went on, "is that he's
escaped, and he's sending this message on his own hook. Though what the
message is about is beyond me."

"Just what did you get down?" asked Jimmy curiously. "I caught a few
words, but I don't remember them all."

"It's a regular hodgepodge," replied Bob, spreading out the sheet of
paper, while they all crowded around to read.

"Corn--hay--six--paint--water--slow--sick--jelly," read Joe aloud.
"Sounds to me like the ravings of a delirium patient."

"And yet I'm sure that I got all the words down right," said Bob
perplexedly. "It must be a code of some kind. We can't understand it,
and Cassey didn't mean that any one should except some one person whose
ear was glued to a radiophone. But you can bet that that person
understood it all right."

"I wonder if we couldn't make it out," suggested Herb.

"No harm in trying," said Joe, "though compared to this a Chinese puzzle
is as simple as A B C. Let's take a hack at it, anyhow. We'll each take
a separate sheet of paper and try to get something out of it that makes
sense."

For nearly an hour the boys did their best. They