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Ed and Jimmy told me how they had found the Captain at Big Duck Island, and how he had spent the night with them all on the "White Rabbit." In the morning the whereabouts of the "Hoppergrass" was still a mystery, although the Captain had been told that the Kidds had probably taken her. Everyone was too impatient, however, to stay at Big Duck until noon, so they set out for Lanesport.

When the smoke of the steamboat appeared they both came around to the front of the house. The Professor shook hands with me, and said goodbye. He had to go to Lanesport, he said, on important business, and he must start now. He was going by the road. "Of course," said he, "I wish I could stay for the excursion, but Mr. Snider will have to receive them, and explain the works."

"Then I should think you'd better steer clear of it." "Oh, they won't have heard anything yet," answered Sprague, lying down on a seat, with his banjo. And he added: "Assisted by Simon, I will now give you a little song." "Do you think we'll find the 'Hoppergrass' at Lanesport?" inquired Ed Mason. "We can but try. We'll do a little sleuth-work there, anyhow." "Who will you inquire from?"

I thought and hoped that he was going to slide right off the roof, but he managed to save himself. His slide was checked somehow, and he commenced to crawl back toward the scuttle. As he did so he uttered a string of curses that would have horrified his friends in Lanesport very much. I heard him descend the ladder.

Twenty minutes later our friends were on board again, and we were getting up the anchor. Jimmy Toppan, the Chief, and Sprague went below to consult a chart, while the rest of us got the yacht under way. When they came back on deck the Chief took the wheel, announcing: "Lanesport it is." "Why Lanesport?" asked Pete. "It's the nearest town on the mainland to Bailey's Harbor," said Jimmy Toppan.

Two minutes later I had begun to regret my decision, and to wonder if it was a mistake to stay on the island. I reflected that I was alone, with two strangers. Yet they were posting advertisements, and asking everybody in Lanesport to come to the island tomorrow. They would hardly do that if there was anything shady about them. From the very first, I had no fault to find with the Professor.

"Think of that, friends, three hundred thousand dollars a month!" Shares in this Company were on sale for five dollars each. They would be placed on sale after the demonstration. He now had the pleasure and the honor to introduce to them one who needed no introduction to an audience from Lanesport, the Hon. J. Harvey Bowditch. Mr. Bowditch came forward with majestic tread.

Then I told them about my adventures with the gold makers, and Spook to the Captain's great delight related the troubles of the Kidd brothers on board the "Hoppergrass." Toward five o'clock we got a breeze, and half an hour later sailed up the river again, to Lanesport. "We won't land at Mulliken's Wharf," said Captain Bannister, "I'm kinder superstitious 'bout that."

Well, it was nothing to me, I had only to find out if Captain Bannister and the "Hoppergrass" were there, and if not, to go back to Lanesport. "Gold from the vasty deep," I wondered what that was. The buried treasure on Fishback Island, had it anything to do with that? Half way across the causeway was a wooden bridge, painted white.

It was the "Lanesport Herald" of the evening before, Wednesday evening. There was an article on the front page headed "Capture Marauders!" Underneath, it went on: "Good Detective Work Flanders Holds Crooks Daring Escape."