the pages.

"It doesn't look like sense to me," complained Jimmy. "I never saw such
a lot of fool words jumbled together."

"Yes, but something tells me there's method in this madness," said Bob,
his brows knit as he concentrated on the problem before him. "Say,
fellows!" he exclaimed, as sudden excitement gripped him, "do you
remember those nights we were listening to our big set and we heard the
mysterious messages? They were just a lot of words, and we couldn't make
anything out of them at the time."

"You bet I remember!" exclaimed Joe. "I think I could even tell you most
of the words. Why, there's some of them in that book, right now!"

"Exactly," replied Bob, nodding. "I remember them, too, and this must be
the key to the code. My stars, what luck! Let's see how close we can
recall the words we caught, and then we'll see if we can make sense of
them with the help of this key."

"I'll tell you the words as I remember them, and you check me up,"
suggested Joe, and this they accordingly did.

Between them they managed to get it straight, just as they had heard it,
"Corn-hay-six-paint-water-slow-sick-jelly."

"I think that's right," said Bob. "Anyway, we'll see if it comes right
with the key. You read the words, Joe, and I'll find them in this
notebook and you can write them down. Shoot the first one."

"Corn," said Joe.

Bob hunted rapidly down the columns of code words and their equivalents,
and soon found the one he was after.

"Motor truck," he read out.

"That sounds promising!" exclaimed Joe. "The next word I've got is
'hay.' What's the answer to that?"

"Silk," said Bob, after a shorter search this time.

"Six," read Joe.

"Castleton Road!" exclaimed Bob, his voice shaking with excitement as he
traced down the columns of words. Herb and Jimmy were also excited;
especially the former, as he realized better than the others how serious
a loss the theft of his father's truckload of silk had been and now
thought he saw some clue in this message that might throw light on the
whereabouts of the stolen goods.

CHAPTER XIX

THE ROBBERS' CODE

"The next word is 'paint,'" said Joe. "What does that stand for, Bob?"

"Just a minute, till I find it," replied his friend, and after turning
over several pages found the word he sought.

"It means 'to-night,'" he said. "Read what we've got so far."

"Motor truck--silk--Castleton Road--to-night," read Joe. "That's clear
enough so far. The next co