Frank was puzzled, but he fancied that Harry understood the message better than he did. "Thanks," said Mr. Oliver, addressing the agent. "Your two friends outside seemed uncommonly anxious about that box." "That's a fact," said the agent. "Larry was worrying me about it before it was light. I don't know the fellow who came along with him, but it struck me that he was listening to the instrument as if he understood it, though he couldn't have heard more than the depot call. Of course," he added thoughtfully, "'most any one who had worked on a railroad would know the code, but I can't figure why they should make so much fuss about a box that's scarcely worth a dollar." "It's curious," Mr. Oliver answered indifferently. "You might lend me your train schedule." The agent gave him the company's time bill, which also included the coast steamboat sailings, and Mr. Oliver walked back with the boys to the hotel. There was nobody in the general room when they reached it, and they sat down near the stove. "Now," he began, "as we have taken you into our confidence and it's probable that you can help, you may as well understand the situation thoroughly. The message was, of course, from Barclay, though it bears a clerk's name, and it means that Porteous has opened the letter you left him. I fancy he'll regret it, but that is by the way. Barclay received the second letter untampered with, and the rest is plain enough. The only question is how I'm to keep the appointment without putting the fellows at the depot on my track." "You believe they're in league with the smugglers?" Frank inquired. Mr. Oliver smiled. "It seems very likely. Here's a man who keeps a boat, and, as you have heard, folks wonder how he makes a living by his fishing. If the boat's moderately fast you can imagine how useful he would be to the smugglers by taking messages from place to place and communicating with the schooner. Then we have another man who seems able to read the telegraph turning up and trying to hear Barclay's message." "But how could they have learned that you expected it?" Frank asked. "I'm not sure. Porteous may have suspected something and sent a mounted man off to wire one of the gang. Besides, the fellow who has the boat may have been across with her. It wouldn't be hard to surmise that I would wire from here, though they may have had a man watching the nearest office I could have reached by land on horseback." He paused a moment and looked at the boys gravely. "All this points to the fact that we're up against a big and remarkably well-organized gang." Frank had no doubt that Mr. Oliver was right, but he asked a question: "Why did Barclay choose Everett when it's so far from the field of their operations?"