“Aw, Ike would kick if you was hangin’ him,” scoffed Frenchy, “unless you tied his feet.  We all got out of the water safe, and that’s enough.  The wind and the rain beat us so that we went up into the woods for shelter.  And then we found a clearing and in it a cabin.”

“Ah-ha!” ejaculated Whistler.  “Another cabin like this one?”

“Not on your life!” said Frenchy.

“No,” added Ikey.  “Nothing like it.”

“It was a little cabin without any windows, and the door was padlocked. 
We couldn’t get into it; but we camped there in the clearing all night. 
I’m as soggy right now as a sponge.”

“There was a flagstaff sticking out of the roof of the cabin,” Ikey observed.  “And somebody must have thought a deal of whatever’s in the shack, by the size of the padlock on the door.”

There was a call to breakfast from the cabin just then.  Whistler slipped aside and caught Mr. MacMasters’ attention.

“Something mysterious, Morgan?” asked the ensign, observing Whistler’s expression of countenance.

The young fellow briefly related what the old woman had said to him and Torry the night before, and then told the officer of the suspicions that her words had aroused in his mind.

In addition, he told Mr. MacMasters what Frenchy and Ikey had said about the locked cabin in the woods.  Whistler put great stress upon this matter.

“Why, I did not see the cabin myself, although Mudge mentioned it,” said the ensign.  “I met them marching out of the woods up along the shore yonder.”

“Can’t we find that cabin and have a look at it?” urged Whistler earnestly.

“But we can’t get into it.”

“No, sir.  But we can see it.  I have an idea.”

“I presume you have, Morgan,” returned the ensign, smiling grimly.  “And I have a glimmer of an idea myself.”

When the men trooped in to breakfast the officer and Whistler Morgan stole away.  The old woman was too busy just then to notice their absence.

In half an hour they found the place where the warrant officer and his companions had broken through the jungle.  They retraced their course and soon came to the clearing in the wood.

It was a secret place, indeed.  The cabin was ten feet square, built of heavy logs, and as Whistler had been told, had no window openings.  The door of heavy planks was fastened by a huge hasp held in place by the padlock mentioned so particularly by Ikey Rosenmeyer.

“I guess we can’t get into it without tools,” said the ensign.

“I don’t suppose so, sir.  But see that pole on top of the cabin?  That had the upperworks of a wireless attached to it, I’m sure.  The bolts are still up there.  It is no flagpole.”

“Right again, Morgan,” agreed Mr. MacMasters.

“And that piece of a letter to Linder,” the boy eagerly reminded him.  “Don’t you think with me, sir, that the old woman is linked up with the German spy system?”