e you
one?"

"Oh, don't do _that!_" cried Leslie, horrified. "It would surely spoil
this beautiful box and might even injure what's in it. There must be
_some_ other way of getting it open if only we take our time and go at it
carefully."

They both sat for several moments regarding their find with resentful
curiosity. Suddenly Leslie's thoughts took a new tack, "How in the world
did it ever come there--buried in the sand like that?"

"Thrown up on the beach by the waves, of course," declared Phyllis,
positively; "no doubt from some wreck, and buried in the sand after a
while, just naturally, as lots of things are."

The explanation was a very probable one. "But it's rather far from the
water's edge," objected Leslie.

"Oh, no, indeed! Why in winter the surf often comes up right under the
bungalows!" remarked Phyllis, in quite an offhanded way.

"Mercy! Don't ever tell Aunt Marcia that, or she'd go straight home!"
exclaimed Leslie. "But isn't it queer that it just happened to be right
in front of Curlew's Nest! Everything queer seems to happen right around
that place."

"That's so! I'd almost forgotten the other thing. But what _I_ can't
understand is how your dog happened to dig the thing up."

"Oh, that's simple! He's always chasing hermit-crabs--it's a great sport
of his. And I suppose it just happened that one dug itself down in the
sand right here, and he dug after it and then came across this."

Phyllis had a sudden brilliant idea. "Let's go and examine the hole!
Perhaps there's something else in it."

They both raced over to the stump and Leslie thrust her hand into the
hole. "There's nothing else in there," she averred, "but perhaps it might
be worth while to dig around here and see if there might be some other
article buried near it. I'll get a shovel."

She disappeared behind her own bungalow for a moment and returned with a
shovel. They dug furiously for ten minutes and turned up the sand all
about the original hole. Nothing of the slightest interest came to light,
however, and they presently abandoned the attempt and filled in the hole
again.

"This is all there was--that's plain," declared Phyllis, "and all we can
think is that it was cast up from some wreck and got buried here."

But Leslie had been thinking. "Has it occurred to you, Phyllis, that it
_might_ have something to do with Curlew's Nest and the queer thing that
happened here? I wonder how long it has been lying in that hole?"