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Outdoor Girls at Ocean View

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<h2>CHAPTER X</h2> <h3>CONJECTURES</h3> Mollie Billette set the black iron box down on the log that had formed the seat for the outdoor girls. A little wind was rapidly drying the dampness. The wind even dried some of the sand on the box, and scattered it in a little rattling shower on a bit of paper on the beach. The girls did not seem to know what to say. Betty looked back from her glance across the bay, in the direction of the now unseen boat, in time to notice Mollie, ever neat, wiping her damp hands on her pocket handkerchief. Amy was looking at the queerly-carved stick which had served her as a shovel to dig in the sand. "Oh! Oh!" exclaimed Grace. "Isn't it wonderful! It really is a box!" "Yes, it's certainly that, all right!" added the more practical Mollie. "And if it should contain treasure!" went on Grace, rather at a loss because her chocolates were all gone.[76] "Old Tin-Back should have found this," commented Mollie. "Or the boys," spoke Betty. "I wish they were here." "The idea!" exploded Mollie. "As if we didn't know what to do as well as though the boys were here to tell us. That isn't our Little Captain; is it, girls?" she asked the others. "Oh, I only meant about the legal end of it," said Betty, quickly. "Oh, I see! She just wants—Allen!" remarked Grace. "No, it isn't that at all!" Betty cried, quickly. "But you know there are certain rules about things found at sea, or near the sea. For instance, if this is above the high-water mark it might be, the property of whoever owns the land back there." "Well, it's above high-water mark all right," declared Amy. "Though I think in a heavy blow or at a high tide the water might come up here. But we can't go by rules now; can we, Betty?" "Oh, I suppose not." "I'm going to take the box home with us," Mollie declared. "It may have been washed ashore from some ship, and there may be nothing in it but——" "Tobacco!" exclaimed Grace with a laugh. "Tobacco?" questioned the others in a chorus.[77] "It looks just like a tobacco box," the chocolate-loving girl went on. "But perhaps it isn't." "Of course it isn't!" declared Mollie. "I'm sure it contains treasure," said Amy. "Oh, if it should! Wouldn't the old lobsterman be surprised?" "Well, he wouldn't be the only one to be surprised," spoke Mollie. "I think we would ourselves," added Betty, with a laugh. "Now, girls, let's see what we really have found." With a bunch of seaweed Mollie brushed from the box the sand that clung to it. Then the outdoor girls gathered around the case as it rested on the log. "Look!" exclaimed 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: <div class='center'> B. B. B. </div> "B-B-B," repeated Mollie, as she read them. "I wonder what they stand for?"[78] "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[79] 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 let a little note of exultation creep into her voice. "At least, that was one of the purposes for which it was intended." "And what was the other?" Mollie asked, as[80] she put back a stray lock of her dark hair, for the wind had blown it about. "As a mark," said Betty. "A mark!" exclaimed Amy. "Yes," went on Betty. "The men who hid the box put the stake in the sand so they could find their treasure again." "Oh, then you are sure it is treasure," Mollie returned. "Well, we might as well think that as anything else—until we get the box open and find it full of—sand!" declared Betty, laughing. "Oh, let's open it now!" cried Grace, impulsively. "I'm just dying to see what's in it. Please let's open it now." "Perhaps we have no right," objected Amy. "Why, of course we have," insisted Grace, making "big eyes" at Amy. "We found it. Can't we open it, Betty?" But there was a very good reason why the girls could not open the box—at least then and there.[81] <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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