"I don't suppose it would," Sally replied, "but somehow I don't like to change anything here or take anything away even for a little while. But you can study it out all you wish, though, for I made a copy of it a good while ago, so's I could study it myself. Here it is." And Sally pulled from her pocket a duplicate of the strange design, made in her own handwriting. At this point, Genevieve suddenly became restless and, clinging to Sally's skirts, demanded to "go and play in the boat." "She doesn't like to stay in here very long," explained Sally. "Well, I don't wonder!" declared Doris. "It's dark and dreary and weird. It makes me feel kind of curious and creepy myself. But, oh! it's a glorious secret, Sally,--the strangest and most wonderful I ever heard of. Why, it's a regular _adventure_ to have found such a thing as this. But let's go out and sit in the boat and let Genevieve paddle. Then we can talk it all over and puzzle this out." Sally returned the tin box and its contents to the hiding-place under the mattress. Then she blew out the candle, remarking as she did so that she'd brought a lot of candles and matches and always kept them there. In the pall of darkness that fell on them, she groped for the entrance, pushed it open and they all scrambled out into the daylight. After that she padlocked the opening and buried the key in the sand nearby and announced herself ready to return to the boat. During the remainder of that sunny morning they sat together in the stern of the boat, golden head and auburn one bent in consultation over the strange combination of letters and figures, while Genevieve, barefooted, paddled in silent ecstasy in the shallow water rippling over the bar. "Sally," exclaimed Doris, at length, suddenly straightening and looking her companion in the eyes, "I believe you have some idea about all this that you haven't told me yet! Several remarks you've dropped make me think so. Now, honestly, haven't you? What _do_ you believe is the secret of this cave and this queer jumble of letters and things, anyway?" Sally, thus faced, could no longer deny the truth. "Yes," she acknowledged, "there _is_ something I've thought of, and the more I think of it, the surer I am. And something that's happened since I knew you, has made me even surer yet." She paused, and Doris, wild with impatience, demanded, "Well?" "_It's pirates!_" announced Sally, slowly and distinctly. "_What?_" cried Doris, jumping to her feet. "Impossible! There's no such thing, nowadays." "I didn't say 'nowadays,'" remarked Sally, calmly. "I think it _was_ pirates, then, if that suits you better." Doris sank down in her seat again in amazed silence. "A pirate cave!" she breathed at last. "I do believe you're right, Sally. What else _could_ it be? But where's the treasure, then? Pirates always had some around, didn't they? And that cave would be the best kind of a place to keep it."