boy, Sam," exclaimed Grant. "You and I will work it out together."

"Ah cain't read nor write," said Sam disconsolately. "Ah's afraid Ah
wouldn't be ob bery much help to yo'. Ah can suttingly do some diggin'
dough."

"Oh, I'm going to stay along; don't worry about that," said Fred. "I
wish Grant would tell us what he's trying to do, but I'm going to stay
by him whether he tells or not."

"I know what he's trying to do," said George. "It's simple enough."

"What is it then?" demanded Grant.

"Why, he thinks these numbers are used in place of letters. A certain
number means a certain letter and wherever he sees it he substitutes the
letter."

"We all know that much," cried John scornfully. "What we want to know is
how he figures out what letter to put in place of a certain number. Can
you tell us that?"

"No, I can't," George admitted ruefully.

"Then you don't know how he does it, do you?"

"No, I don't. That is, not yet."

"Go ahead then, Grant," exclaimed John. "We're wasting time here."

"You want to go on with it, do you?"

"Of course we do."

Grant picked up the code and studied it attentively for some moments.
Finally he put it down again. "Suppose we put the letter _h_ in
place of the figure eight," he said. "Eight seems to be a fairly common
number."

Once again Fred copied the mysterious set of numbers, making the change
that Grant had suggested.

CHAPTER XXIII

PROGRESS

When Fred had completed his task the following result appeared:

20-1-11-e-1-3-15-21-18-19-e-4-25-e-n-15-18-20-h-15-n-e-h-21-n-4-18-e-
4-6-e-e-20-6-18-15-13-2-h-e-19-15-21-20-h-e-18-n-e-24-20-18-e-13-9-
20-25-15-6-19-h-1-18-11-18-15-3-11-20-h-e-n-e-1-19-20-6-9-6-20-25-6-
e-e-20-1-n-4-n-15-18-20-h-2-25-e-1-19-20-20-h-9-18-20-25-20-h-18-e-
e-4-9-7.

"Is it coming out all right, Grant?" asked John. "It doesn't look like
very much to me just yet."

"It doesn't spell any words yet," said Fred.

"Yes, indeed, it certainly does," exclaimed Grant. "There's _he_ a
couple of times. That spells something, doesn't it!"

"Yes, that does," admitted Fred, "but what can _n-e-h_ be? I never
heard of that word or _e-n-e_ either."

"You must remember that it isn't all done yet by a good deal," Grant
protested. "You see we've substituted only three letters so far and it
spells two words already. I call that pretty good work."

"Yes, and in a minute you may run up against a snag and find that you're
all wrong," said George.