s right handy."

A dozen yards from the camp David suddenly stopped and exclaimed:

"What's that now?"

On a great sloping rock close to the shore, but hidden by a jutting
point from the place where they had landed, was a recently made cairn
of boulders capped by a large flat stone.

"Somebody's been here!" said David as they hurried forward to examine
the cairn.

"'Tis wonderful strange to pile stones that way," said Micah. "'Tis
new made, too."

"Maybe it's a cache," suggested Lige, "but it's a rare small un. Look
and see. 'Tis a strange place for a cache!"

David lifted the flat stone from the top and discovered beneath it a
small tin can. In the can was a folded paper. He removed the paper and
unfolding it discovered a message written in a cramped, scrawling
hand.

"Read un, Davy! Read un out loud! You reads writin' good!" said Lige,
and David read:

"i cum and stayed 2 hour, and wood not stay no longer for i
hed to go and did not see you comin any were. Then i gos to
the rock were We Was the day We was hunting Wen We come here
ferst time. Then i done this way. i Pases 20 Pases up To a
Hackmatack Tree. it was north. then i Pases 40 Pases west
To a round rock, Then i Pases 60 Pases south To a wite berch
i use cumpus. Then i climes a spruce Tree and hangs it and
it is out of site in the Branches. if You plays me Crookid
look out, i wont Stand for no Crooked work and You know what
i will do to anybody plays me Crooked. You no Were to put my
haf of the Swag. So i can get it Wen i go to get it."

There was no signature.

"That's a strange un--wonderful strange," said David.

"Stranger'n anything I ever sees," declared Lige.

"Whatever is un all about?" asked Micah.

"That's the strangeness of un," said Lige.

"Let's show un to Doctor Joe," suggested David.

But Doctor Joe, when they broke in upon him a moment later, was as
mystified as they.

"It looks," said he, "as though something had been cached and here are
the directions for finding the cache. There's a threat in the letter,
too, and that looks bad. It's a mystery, lads, we'll try to search
out. It doesn't look right. Perhaps it's the clue to some crime."

"How can we search un out?" asked David excitedly. "We're not knowin'
the rock, and there's plenty of rocks hereabouts."

"That's true," admitted Doctor Joe. "Go and put the paper back as you
found it, and we'll see what we can make