"I think it very unlikely," said Miss Camilla. "Most of them could neither read nor write, and they would hardly have understood an explanation so complex. No, it must be something else. I wonder--" She stopped short and stood thinking intently a moment while her visitors watched her anxiously. A pained and troubled expression had crept into her usually peaceful face, and she seemed to be reviewing memories that caused her sorrow. "Can you get the original paper for me?" she suddenly exclaimed in great excitement. "Now--at once? I have just thought of something." "I'll get it!" cried Sally, and she was out of the house in an instant, flying swift-footed over the ground that separated them from the entrance of the cave by the river. While she was gone Miss Camilla sat silent, inwardly reviewing her painful memories. In ten minutes Sally was back, breathless, with the precious, rusty tin box clasped in her hand. Opening it, she gave the contents to Miss Camilla, who stared at it for three long minutes in silence. When she looked up her eyes were tragic. But she only said very quietly: "It is my brother's writing!" CHAPTER XII LIGHT DAWNS ON MISS CAMILLA "What do you make of it all, Sally?" The two girls were sitting in the pine grove on the heights of Slipper Point. They sat each with her back against a tree and with the enchanting view of the upper river spread out panoramically before them. Each of them was knitting,--an accomplishment they had both recently acquired. "I can't make anything of it at all, and I've thought of it day and night ever since," was Sally's reply. "It's three weeks now since the day we came through that tunnel and discovered where it ended. And except what Miss Camilla told us that day, she's never mentioned a thing about it since." "It's strange, how she stopped short, just after she'd said the writing was her brother's," mused Doris. "And then asked us in the next breath not to question her about it any more, and to forgive her silence in the matter because it probably concerned something that was painful to her." "Yes, and kept the paper we found in the cave," went on Sally. "I believe she wanted to study it out and see what she could make of it. If she's sure it was written by her brother, she will probably be able to puzzle it out better than we would. One thing, I guess, is certain, though. It isn't any secret directions where to find treasure. All our little hopes about that turned out very differently, didn't they?" "Sally, are you glad or sorry we've discovered what we did about that cave?" demanded Doris suddenly. "Oh, glad, of course," was Sally's reply. "At first, I was awfully disgusted to think all my plans and hopes about it and finding buried treasure and all that had come to nothing. But, do you know what has made me feel differently about it?" She looked up quickly at Doris. "No, what?" asked her companion curiously.