lmost ashamed to tell you of that."

"Tell me."

"A--a dream? Do you wish to know what I dreamed?"

"Yes--if it was a dream."

"It was. I was asleep on the deck of the _Mindinao_, dead tired after a
fruitless hike. I dreamed she came toward me through a young woodland
all lighted by the sun, and in her hands she held masses of that wild
flower we call Solomon's Seal. And she said--in the voice I know must be
like hers: 'If you could only read! If you would only understand the
message I send you! It is everywhere on earth for you to read, if you
only would!'

"I said: 'Is the message in the seal? Is that the key to it?'

"She nodded, laughing, burying her face in the flowers, and said:

"'Perhaps I can write it more plainly for you some day; I will try very,
very hard.'

"And after that she went away--not swiftly--for I saw her at moments far
away in the woods; but I must have confused her with the glimmering
shafts of sunlight, and in a little while the woodland grew dark and I
woke with the racket of a Colt's automatic in my ears."

He passed his sun-bronzed hand over his face, hesitated, then leaned
over the photograph once more, which the Tracer was studying intently
through the magnifying glass.

"There is something on that window in the photograph which I'm going to
copy," he said. "Please shove a pad and pencil toward me."

Still examining the photograph through the glass which he held in his
right hand, Mr. Keen picked up the pencil and, feeling for the pad,
began very slowly to form the following series of symbols:

[Illustration: Cryptographic symbols]

"What on earth are you doing?" muttered Captain Harren, twisting his
short mustache in perplexity.

"I am copying what I see through this magnifying glass written on the
window pane in the photograph," said the Tracer calmly. "Can't you see
those marks?"

"I--I do now; I never noticed them before particularly--only that there
were scratches there."

When at length the Tracer had finished his work he sat, chin on hand,
examining it in silence. Presently he turned toward Harren, smiling.

"Well?" inquired the younger man impatiently; "do those scratches
representing Solomon's Seal mean anything?"

"It's the strangest cipher I ever encountered," said Mr. Keen--"the
strangest I ever heard of. I have seen hundreds of
ciphers--hundreds--secret codes of the State Department, secret military
codes, elaborate Oriental ciphers, symbols used in comme