“Please explain what you mean, Grace,” commanded the Chief Guardian.  “You say there were two men here last night.  How do you know?”

“I found the markth of their feet—­in the thand.  But that wathn’t all I found.  There wath a boat here, too—­a boat.  Now, what do you think of that?”

“Try to be more explicit, Grace,” urged Miss Elting.  “Tell us what you have discovered, without beating about the bush so long.”

“There wathn’t any buthh to beat about.  It wath right on the thand.  Don’t you underthtand?”

Miss Elting sat down.  “Tell it your own way, then.  We are simply wasting time in trying to hurry you,” she said.

“Yeth.  Well, it wath thith way.  I wath looking for the treathure trail that Harriet told uth about at breakfatht thith morning, though I don’t thee how thhe thhould know anything about it.  My footthepth led me—­led me, you understand?  No, it wath my feet, not my footthtepth, that led me—­right along the thhore of the ocean.  And what do you thuppose I found?”

“An oyster shell,” suggested Margery.

“No, not that.  I found where a boat had been drawn up on the thhore and then thhoved out again.  It had been drawn up on the thand.  Then there were trackth about the place, trackth of heavy bootth, and a mark in the thand where thomething heavy had been put down.  It looked like a box.  I gueth it wath.  The men had taken the box between them and carried it up and down the thhore ath far ath I could thee.  You know, the tide wathhed the marks out near down to the thea.”

“What did they do with the box, dearie?” interrupted Harriet.

“That I have not yet dethided.  I thhall find out about that later.  Well, after a time, it theemth, they took the box up the thandy beach and into the woodth, but by that time it wath tho dark that I couldn’t thee any more footprintth and couldn’t tell what they did with the box.”

“Marvelous,” muttered Buster.  “Excruciatingly marvelous!”

“Is this a fairy story?” demanded Mrs. Livingston.

“Ask Harriet,” suggested Crazy Jane.  “I think she knows more about it than Tommy does.  Don’t you, Harriet?”

“What makes you think that, Jane?” questioned Harriet mischievously.

“Ask me, darlin’.”

“I have, dear.”

Jane stepped over and whispered in Harriet’s ear, the others regarding the proceeding with puzzled expressions on their faces.  Harriet’s face broke out into a ripple of smiles.

“I am caught red-handed,” she said.  “It seems that I am not the only light sleeper in the Meadow-Brook camp.  Jane chanced to observe something that I did last night.  She has known it all along.  She hinted at it this morning, and I suspected that she knew more than she had told us.”

“But, my dear, we are all in the dark,” reminded the Chief Guardian.  “Won’t you be good enough to explain this mystery?  Surely you can do so in a way that will make it clear to us.  Two men, a box and a boat and goodness knows what else, here on this lonely part of the coast.”