The Sherwood Ring by Elizabeth Marie Pope

besides, Jasper tried to eat it when he saw I'd caught him for good and all. He wouldn't have done that if he'd been told to let me have it."
    "Where's Jasper now?"
    "Tied up in your South Meadow. I didn't quite know what to do with the other farmhand and that housekeeper of his, but they don't seem to be concerned in this, so I told them to keep their mouths shut and took the liberty of sending over a couple of your rangers to discourage them if they try to leave or talk to anybody. And now please may I get out of these abominable clothes and go fishing?"
    Dick held out his hand to him with a look of gratitude that made Lieutenant Featherstone blush.
    "Charles," he said, "you literally are a blessing in disguise, and I hope you catch a whale."
    "Well, just so it's anything but a cow," said Lieutenant Featherstone, saluting us formally and then making for the door. "I never want to see or smell another cow again as long as I live. When I think of the way I used to drink milk as a child, it makes me positively ill."
    The door swung shut again behind Lieutenant Featherstone's filthy back, and the rest of us came crowding up around the table to look at the cipher letter. I was so excited that for a moment I could hardly even read the words on the paper as I stood peering down at it under the cover of Dick's elbow: "Better Meet every evening making Us elegant rich music At invitation, letting loathsome Bald aged tyrants — "
    "Oh, merciful heaven!" Dick's voice was saying ruefully. "It is a cipher, sure enough."
    "What's the difference?" demanded Colonel Van Spurter. "I suppose this man Twill can be forced to tell you the key."
    "If Peaceable Sherwood's men could be forced to tell anything, Sputters, they wouldn't be in his gang at all. I'm afraid we'll have to struggle on by ourselves. It can't be a very difficult cipher — that's one good thing. Old Jasper's too simple-minded to understand a complicated one."
    "It looks complicated enough to me," I said, finishing the letter and beginning to read through it again. "The words as they stand now don't seem to make any real sense — and why has he written so many of them with capital letters? Look, Dick! There's 'meet,' 'us,' 'at,' and — wait a moment! Dick! Doesn't that sound as if it might be — "
    "Good Lord, so it does! Go on, Eleanor — all the words with the capital letters. Never mind the rest. They'll be put in simply to fill up space and create confusion."
    " 'Meet — us — ,"' I read, " 'at — Bald — Rock — for — ' "
    " 'Raid — on — supply — train,' " finished Colonel Van Spurter, triumphantly. "What supply train would that be, Dick?"
    "There's only one on the road just now, moving up the Central Valley with gunpowder for West Point," said Dick, turning the cipher letter over restlessly in his hand and looking down at it again. "But I thought —" he added rather slowly, "I thought that was too much for even Peaceable to tackle. Charles told me they were sending a whole armed guard down to meet it."
    "All the better — he'll have to come with every man he can lay his hands on, and we'll haul in the whole gang at one swoop. I've got about fifty rangers of my own with me that I can add to yours — and with eighty in all, it ought to be easy."
    "Yes," said Dick, thoughtfully. "Almost too easy."
    "And by the way, Dick," Colonel Van Spurter swept on without heeding him, "I think I'd better be the one to command the expedition. After all, I'm bringing more men to it than you are; and even your men were originally in my company to begin with."
    "Certainly you may command the expedition, Sputters — if we go."
    "What do you mean, if we go?"
    "Just what I say. I can't explain very well, but... I simply don't like the looks of this message, Sputters. It's all wrong, somehow. Can't you see for yourself? It's not like Peaceable. As I said a moment ago, it's — it's too easy."
    "You mean it might be some sort of trap? But didn't your friend Lieutenant