Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1906-04-05
up to the table, and spreading


-.
c.."i up 70 .he 'aoie' ana spreading
Vut III 'front.' OF MN the various papers
"ioii when We're recorded the antics
81 81 "a" o@iiclhS men. AS to you, friend
N"tSpll' l owe every a~tonelnent for
'i-N4's htoWeu your natural curiosity
10 remain 50 long unsatisiied. To You,
inspector, the whole incident may app
pear as a remarkable professional
study. ] L tel you, first OF all. the
interesting circumstances connected
WIN the previous consultations which
Mf. Hilton CGbitt has had with me in
i'aker street He then shortly re-
etVltulateG the facts which have al
ready tesn recorded. Il have here in
front Of ma these singular productions.
at VIM ia one might smile, had they not
OF so teriibla d trasely. | ann fairly
familia aga Mi ~, AZ mv . { so Of ss,nau VIZ " ,
tl4iaS monograph upon the subject.
IN Mhieh analy2e one hundred and
S,l<'y aepni'ie Gphers' u ! confess
ihal this " en'ifety new 10 me. The
NNJeet OF thVse VINO invented lne sys-
leW mas apparently been TO conceal
tAAl ihcSe characters convey a mes
sage. ana TO give the Idea tlft they
are inc mere random sketches OF chill
go
"ilaving once recognized. however.
that the symbols stood for letters. aud
having applied The rules which guide
ls in an forms of secret writing, the
solution was easy enough. The first
message submitted to me was 50
short that it was Impossible for
me to do more than To say. with
some confidence. that the svnbnl
stood for T.. AS YOU are aware "
T. is the most common letter in
the English alphabet. and it pre- n
dominates to SO marked an ey- = y
tent that even in a short sentence
one would expect to find ii most often.
out of fifteen symbols in the frs- mes
sage, four were Tho same -, in 100
reasonable to set this down as u. MS
true that in some cases the figure was
pearinS q flag. and in some cases not.
but 1t was probable, from the way in
which the flags We're distributed. tina
they We're used to break the sentence M
into words. | accepted this as n hypothe-
sis.and noted Ewas represented BY >s<
hul now came the real diff Y
''cuity OF the inquiry. The order
OF the English letters after L ~
I'D, - MEMS wen marked.
ha - iiepo""eralice which may
~ @i'"t IA an average OF a
n.e may pc reversed in a
ni9.c s""it sentence. Speaking rough
=. . - J. ~ = II, X, - ana l. are
na, ~, ~ ~ N"lch INttoiS
~, y, !. pu. y, - ana l are very near
~ a"'enSu o. Gtcn othei, ana IT o
:" si'"reSS 'a7N 10 Try each cohlpln-
~ uli.Il d meaning was arrived at.
,"eleioIe Walled Tor fresh material.
~ Wy SECOND lilterNleW with MI. hilton
upl't 1T was apie TO give me two
"tnrl snort sentences ana one message.
MHlci appeared since there was no
,b.e !" DE a slilsle VOID Here are
- - 't,olS' Now IN the single word
. nans "'lei'ty bot me tWo rs coming
, e,",ap "l"' iourlH IN n word OF five
IT 'liS"t pe sever, or lever
= ny l, l n"ie can De no question
~ .HS id,,er as a reply to an appeal
- d ~ i'iost ~pIVpaple. ana the cir
nu.HS.aa.es pointed 70 It's being Il re-
ny written py Il iady. Accepting
IL as correct we are now able to
SAY 'hat the symbols
stana respectively iol "
- una H. - -
Even mow | was[
in considerable diff
Guilty. but q happy thought put me
in the possession Of several other
letters. 1t occurred to me that if these
appeals came. as | expected. from
someone who had beer intimate with