e the other there must be five rows of thirteen letters
each, or thirteen rows of five each. I'll try the five rows first.
That's more like the other cipher."

Swiftly he set down the five rows of letters, thus:

E E A N N R D B O E U N R
Y W S E U T T E R O N S N
N F E E I A Y W M N V T T
A S A N X J U L E I G O K
W S N V A T Y I Z L E T K

Eagerly he ran his eye down the columns of letters, as he had become
accustomed to doing with the old cipher, but the letters were
unintelligible. Next he read the letters across the rows, but with no
better result. The eager look faded from his eyes.

"I'll have to try the other," he said, and began to make his letters
into rows of five each, thus:

E E A N N
R D B O E
U N R Y W
S E U T T
E R O N S
N N F E E
I A Y W M
N V T T A
S A N X J
U L E I G
O K W S N
V A T Y I
Z L E T K

With renewed eagerness he ran his eye down the first column.
"E-R-U-S-E-N-I-N----" he began, then stopped short in disgust.
"Nothing doing that way," he muttered.

Then he read the letters across the rows: "E-E-A-N-N----"

"They've got me stopped," he said. And he threw down his pencil and
sat staring at the paper before him, twisting the letters into every
shape he could think of, but to no avail.

Meantime each of the other members of the patrol was going through much
the same process. Lew gave up first, acknowledging himself beaten.
Henry sat scowling and working away industriously. Dr. Hardy tried
first one combination of letters, then another, but in vain. Willie
had laid out the letters in exactly the same way Roy had. But Willie
worked differently from any boy in the group. The rest had been
feverishly setting down letters as new combinations presented
themselves to their minds, whether the combinations seemed logical or
not. Willie first arranged his letters in the long rows and sat for
many minutes looking intently at them.

At Camp Brady it was Willie who had learned, better than any other
member of the patrol, the lesson of observation. When the patrol was
practising scouting, which is only another name for close observing,
Willie had sat for hours studying the landscapes, even when his fellows
teased him. Thus he had learned to see everything within sight and
make note of it. And when a guide was needed later, to conduct a party
through the midnight woods in quest of the dynamiters' lair, Willie was
the scout who was able