Chapter XVI: An Unexpected Message

"Was he surprised?" cried the four boys of the wireless patrol, as their captain entered the living-room after his trip to the secret service offices.

Captain Hardy chuckled. "I think he was," he said. "But for a time it was I who was surprised. The Chief knew from his own men all about yesterday's message. One of them picked it up. What's more, he has a lot of amateurs in different parts of the country listening in, just as you are doing, and they picked up yesterday's message at enough different points to indicate the line of the secret stations we are after. The messages are crossing the border somewhere near El Paso. But the Germans are getting them across in some way other than by wireless. They know we'd spot their outfit quick. The Chief thinks some one telephones the messages the last lap and that a messenger carries them into Mexico."

"And what about the dollar and the disc?" asked Roy. "What did the Chief think of them?"

"Well, he was surprised. And what's more, we got hold of that dollar at exactly the right moment. The secret service men arrested a Mexican who was wading the Rio Grande at El Paso last night. They searched him and found nothing on him that seemed incriminating. They questioned him and the fellow finally said he had smuggled some tobacco into this country, so they put him in jail as a smuggler. The fellow had some money he had gotten for his tobacco--and it was three silver dollars! The secret service men down there knew nothing of what we have found out here, so they gave the fellow back his money. But I am morally certain that their man is the spy who carries the messages across the border."

"Of course," cried Willie. "What else could he be--sneaking across the boundary with three silver dollars."

Everybody laughed.

"It doesn't follow that he's a spy, just because he has three silver dollars. He may be a smuggler, all right enough. But I believe the smuggling is just a blind. If he were a genuine smuggler, he'd bring more than three dollars' worth of stuff across."

"What have they done with his dollars now?" asked Roy eagerly.

"I don't know, Roy. The Chief got into instant touch with his men at El Paso as soon as I showed him the dollar Henry got. But I left before I knew what the outcome was. However, I have no doubt they will find that the dollars are what we suspect them to be."

"Gee!" said Willie. "To think that the wireless patrol found out about those dollars!"

"I guess the secret service knows by this time that boys are worth something," smiled Roy. "Before we get through, they may think so even more."

"You're certainly not increasing in modesty," laughed their leader.

"Well, I don't care," said Roy hotly. "It makes me tired. Everybody says, 'Oh! They're only boys.' Of course we're only boys, but look at what we've done. Why, the wireless patrol has got the best set of fellows----"

But Roy's protest was smothered in a burst of laughter from his fellows.

"Well, I'm glad you feel so good over what we've been fortunate enough to accomplish," said Captain Hardy, "for I fear there will be no more excitement for you. The Chief says his men now have the spy business well in hand, and that all he wants of us from now on is merely to stay here and catch their messages until he is ready to make his raid."

"Just what I was saying," burst out Roy indignantly. "They won't let us in on their raid because 'we're only boys.' But who was it caught the dynamiters, if it wasn't 'just boys'? The men couldn't do it. They tried twice and failed. Gee! It makes me tired."

"Never mind, Roy," said Captain Hardy smiling. "Even if we don't have any further taste of excitement, we can always remember that we had a big part in catching these spies--for they're going to be caught, sure. And you mustn't forget that if we stay here and do well the part assigned to us, we are helping just as much as the men who actually round up the spies. You know Milton says 'They also serve who only stand and wait.' If there aren't any reserves to stand and wait behind the lines, the men on the firing-line do not dare to push ahead. And besides, Roy, it is seldom that four boys play so important a part in great deeds as you four boys already have played."

"Four boys and a man," corrected Henry. "Without you we could never have gotten anywhere," and Henry looked affectionately at his captain.

"Oh! Yes, I had a part in it," agreed the captain, "but it was only a part."

"But you read the ciphers," protested Henry. "If you hadn't done that, we could not have made any headway at all."

"And who caught the messages for me to decipher? The reason we have gotten along so well is because we work together so perfectly. I want to thank you boys for being so faithful. I've given you many hard tasks to do."

"After our experiences at Camp Brady," said Lew, "we couldn't do anything else than be faithful. We know by experience what happens when we don't do our duty."

"Then you are going to listen in during the remainder of the spy hunt," said Captain Hardy, with an affectionate smile, "just as faithfully as though your work weren't already done and the spice gone out of it. I know it will be dull and uninteresting, boys, but you've made such a fine record that I don't want you to fall down now. So be very careful--if only for my sake."

"They've never talked once," said Henry ruefully, "excepting after the transports sail. I don't suppose they ever will except when the ships go out. We'll have to listen to nothing for twenty-four hours a day. But we're going to do it just the same."

He rose and walked toward the wireless room. "It's back to the mines for me," he added. And he disappeared through the doorway of the wireless room.

But hardly had he sat down and clamped the receiver to his ears before he cried out. His fellows came flocking into the room. Henry was swiftly writing a string of letters on a sheet of paper.

"Something of moment must be afoot," said Captain Hardy, in a low voice, "for them to be talking at this time. It must be important, indeed."

"It's a long message," whispered Willie, as Henry continued to fashion letter after letter.

"Something tells me it is important," repeated Captain Hardy. "What can it be? You don't suppose the secret service men have alarmed them, do you?"

Henry finished his writing and laid down his pencil. His chief picked up the sheet of paper and scanned the long line of letters Henry had made, like this:

EEANNRDBOEUNRYWSEUTTERONSNNFEEIAYWMNVTTASANXJULEIGOKWSNVATYIZLETK

"Sixty-five," he said aloud, after counting the letters carefully.

A frown came over his face as he stood looking at the paper in his hand. "Sixty-five," he repeated. "All their other cipher messages have made four even lines. You can't divide sixty-five evenly by four. Boys, I believe--but we'll make sure first."

He sank into a chair, laid the paper on the desk, and arranged the letters according to the old plan, thus:

EEANNRDBOEUNRYW
SEUTTERONSNNFEE
IAYWMNVTTASANXJ
ULEIGOKWSNVATYI

"I don't know what to do with the five letters left over," he said, as he laid down his pencil. Then as he ran his eye down column after column and across each line, he continued, "But I guess it makes no difference. It is just as I thought. I feel more certain than ever that something of great importance is afoot. They've switched to another cipher."