claimed Grace as the covering of sand was disposed of. "There
are some letters on the box."

"So there are!" agreed Betty. They leaned forward to look.

Staring at them from the black top of the box were three white letters.
They were rather scratched and faded, but the girls soon made them out
as follows:

_B. B. B._

"B-B-B," repeated Mollie, as she read them. "I wonder what they stand
for?"

"Base-ball-band," said Grace, quickly. "At least that's what Will would
say if he were here."

"I wish some of the boys _were_ here," remarked Betty, and again she
gave a quick glance out across the bay.

"Why?" Amy wanted to know.

"Because those men might come back, and----"

"Do you think those men hid the box here?" asked Grace.

"That's exactly what I think," replied Betty, quickly. "Wouldn't that be
an explanation of their strange conduct when they saw us?"

"How do you mean?" asked Amy.

"I mean I think those men had just hidden this box here in the sand. As
they went away they saw us coming along. They were afraid we would find
the box, or at least some of them were, and wanted to come back to dig
it up again."

"And do you think that was why they quarreled among themselves?"
demanded Mollie.

"I think so--yes. Doesn't it seem natural?" Betty asked.

"Well, of course you can make almost any theory fit when you don't know
the facts," Mollie went on. "But how about the box having been washed up
from the ocean, and buried in the sand naturally? That could have
happened; couldn't it?"

"Oh, yes," assented Betty. "The box wasn't buried so deep but what it
could have come about in a perfectly natural way. But when you stop to
think how the men acted, and the fact that it was just about here their
boat was, I think my idea is the best."

"Well, it certainly was from here they pushed off their boat," declared
Grace, walking down toward the edge of the water. "See, there are the
marks of the keel in the sand."

That was true enough, as all the girls could see. The black box had been
buried in the sand directly back from the point where the men had made
their departure.

"There's another thing, too," added Betty. "That stick Amy has."

The other girls looked at it, Amy herself regarding it with rather
curious eyes.

"It was stuck in the sand near the box," Amy said. "I worked it loose,
pulled it up, and used it as a shovel."

"Exactly what it might have been intended for," spoke Betty, who le