The Voyage of the Hoppergrass Part 20

One of the men on the piazza answered:

"Big Duck."

"Big Duck Island?"

"Yup. He--"

The other man broke in. "He says to me that he was goin' to Rogerses'."

"Rogerses'? Where's that?"

"Rogerses' Island," said the hotel man, "'bout three miles t'other side of Bailey's Harbor."

One of the men now came in from the piazza, and after much questioning we found out all they knew. Captain Bannister had arrived in Lanesport sometime the latter part of the afternoon. He left the "Hoppergra.s.s" at the wharf, and came up into the town.

When he returned, an hour later, his boat had disappeared. One or two men had seen it sail down the river, but in the fog had not noticed who was on board. The Captain "flew round like a coot shot in the head," declared our informant. He went from one wharf to another, started to hire a yacht and go in pursuit, but gave up the plan. Then he went to the police-station.

"The police reckoned it was some of them burglars had took it. The fellers that have been breakin' into houses on Little Duck."

"They've ketched them fellers," said the hotel man.

"Ketched 'em?"

"Yes. Got 'em last night, breakin' into a house in Bailey's Harbor. Bert Janvrin was in here not more'n ten minutes ago, and he heard 'bout it from a feller that was off Bailey's this mornin', haulin' lobster-pots. They got the whole gang, and put 'em in jail, an' they all got out again, somehow, an' got away on a boat, an' there's a man missin',--Mose Silloway,--you know Mose, Joe--an' they think likely he's been murdered by 'em."

Mr. Daddles looked at me very gravely, and rubbed his upper lip, hard.

"Dear me!" he said, "why, that's terrible! I hope it will turn out all right. Well, we want to find Captain Bannister and his boat.

How do you get to Rogers's Island?"

"Jes' go over to Bailey's Harbor, an' keep on to the far end of the island,--you can row across to Rogerses' from there."

"I don't think he has gone to Rogerses', young feller," said one of the men, "I heard him say he was goin' to try Big Duck, fust."

"I guess we'll have to try them both,--thank you, all."

We said good-bye, and left the hotel. As we walked down the street again Sprague said that we would do well to get away from Lanesport, soon.

"If any more of these Bill Janvrins, or whatever his name was, come here with news about the burglars, we may find the constable after us again."

"It seems to me," said Pete, "that you fellows are getting in deeper all the time. When you had lost your boat and your Captain it was bad enough. But now the Captain has lost the boat, and one is in one place, and the other in another."

"Some of us will have to go to Big Duck Island, and some of us to Rogers's," said Ed Mason.

"By way of Bailey's Harbor?" asked Pete, with a sarcastic smile.

"We won't have to go there," said Jimmy; "at least, I don't think so. I noticed Rogers's Island on the chart. I don't believe we'd have to land on Little Duck at all."

We talked it over on our way back to the boat. In one or two shops, where Sprague bought some food, we found out that the horse-cars would take us to Squid Cove. Beyond that ran the car on which we had travelled yesterday. Then there was a walk of less than two miles to a point on the sh.o.r.e from which a row-boat could take us to Rogers's Island. It was a long way to go, but it was necessary in order to avoid Bailey's Harbor. Moreover, since Sprague and Pete decided to take their boat to Big Duck Island, the trip to Rogers's must be made by land.

"It will be safer for just one of us to go to Rogers's Island,"

said Mr. Daddles, "and he can look around after the Captain and the 'Hoppergra.s.s.' If he finds them, they can all sail over to Big Duck Island tonight or to-morrow morning and join us there. If he doesn't see anything of them, he can come back here to Lanesport, and spend the night in the Eagle House. Then the rest of us will join him tomorrow afternoon, with or without Captain Bannister, as the case may be. But we'll wait at Big Duck till noon."

When we got back to the yacht, there was the Chief, peacefully reading a last year's magazine. We routed him up, and cooked the dinner. While we were eating, the question arose: who was to go to Rogers's Island?

"We'll draw lots," said someone. We did so,--with slips of paper, and I was more than pleased when I saw that I had,--well, I was going to say: won. I thought I had won at the time, and I was tickled at the idea of going on this expedition by myself.

As we were separated from our boat, clothes, and all our belongings, Sprague fitted me out with some money, and I left Lanesport on the horse-car. At Squid Cove I looked anxiously to see if the car-driver would remember me, and I was glad to see a boy, about my own age, driving the old horse.

"Gran'father's gone over to Bailey's Harbor," said he, "to see if the burglars have come back. Gee! I'd like to see a burglar, wouldn't you? Gee! they say these had black masks, an' six- shooters, an' bottles of chloro-chlory--of that stuff they put folks to sleep with. An' bra.s.s knuckles. Say, did you ever see any bra.s.s knuckles? I did. I know a feller that has got a pair. He keeps 'em in the hay in the barn, so's his father won't get onto him. Gee! They put the burglars into the new jail, but they all got out, an' no one knows how they did it. Nate Bradley come back on his milk-cart from Bailey's and he says he went into the jail, an' the cells was all locked up, so they must have clumb out through the bars somehow. Gee! No one can find old Mose Silloway, an' they think the burglars drownded him, outer revenge. Giddap!"

He leaned over the front of the car and hit the horse a loud slap, with the ends of his reins.

"Gee! You bet Eb Flanders is madder than a settin' hen!"

"Who is he?" said I. Which was guile on my part.

"He's constable. He caught the burglars, y'know, right in the face 'n eyes of two policemen from Lanesport. An' when they got away, Eb pretty near bust his biler. He got his possy together again, an' he says he'll have 'em back if it takes a leg, an' when he gets 'em he'll set over 'em night an' day, with a shot-gun. Gee!"

He hit the horse another slap with the reins, and then turned to grin at me through a gap where four front teeth were missing. He was a jolly looking boy, with a round, red face like the rising moon.

"I wouldn't like to be them burglars, when Eb ketches hold of 'em again," he continued. "No, sir. Why, Eb arrested two fellers last summer for haulin' Levi Sanborn's lobster-pots,--he took an' tied 'em back to back an' carried 'em over to Lanesport in his boat, an' turned 'em over to the police. One feller got six months in the House of C'rrection. Gee! You're goin' to Bailey's, aint yer?"

"No, I'm going to Rogers's Island."

"You be? Why, the excursion aint till tomorrow!"

I said "What excursion?" before I thought.

"Why, the Comp'ny. Aint you heard 'bout the Comp'ny? Gran'father's goin'. Everbody's goin'. Don't you live in Lanesport?"

"No, I don't know anything about it. What is it,--a picnic? How many people live there,--on Rogers's Island?"

"Didn't no one live there--till 'bout a month ago. Then those two gen'lemen came,--the P'fessor an' Mr. Snider. The house had been empty for a year an' a half,--ever since old man Rogers died. He was the last of the fam'ly, an' his folks have owned the island an' lived in the house ever since the first one of 'em come over in the 'Mayflower' or with Christopher C'lumbus, or somebody. When Gran'father was a boy there was twenty-seven of 'em livin' there, an' nineteen of 'em was children. Gee! there must have been a mob,--all in one house! But they've been dyin' off, or movin' away or somethin', an' when old man Rogers died there wasn't no one for him to leave the prop'ty to but a hospittle or somethin'. An' the hospittle aint never come to live there, or nothin', an' it's stayed empty. I went over there once last summer, an' peeked into the winders. ... But Mr. Snider an' the P'fessor are there now,-- they hired the whole island to 'stablish the Comp'ny on."

He stopped the car for some pa.s.sengers,--two women and two little girls who had been picking flowers beside the road. One of the women commenced to ask questions and I did not get much chance to talk with him again until we came to the end of the line, at the causeway leading to Bailey's Harbor.

I decided not to linger at this point, but merely stopped to ask the boy if I would be able to get a boat to row to Rogers's Island.

"You won't want one," said he, "there's a bridge. You'll find it all dry walkin'."

I learned what this meant, when, after about half an hour's walk, I came to a turn in the road, and a post with a metal sign: "Rogers's I.--1/2m." Here was another causeway across a marsh, not as well kept, nor as much used, as that from Bailey's Harbor, but quite pa.s.sable. The island was in plain sight at the end of the road,--a rocky hummock of land, with two patches of trees. At the edge of one of these groups of trees I could see a chimney and one corner of a house. A big, pink poster, stuck up on the sign-post, had caught my eye. It was like several others which I remembered having seen on trees and fences as I came along the road. Now, for the first time, I stopped to read one of them. This is what it said:

GOLD FROM THE VASTY DEEP OLD OCEAN GIVES UP HIS WEALTH AT LAST SUCc.u.mBS TO THE MODERN WIZARD EASE AND COMFORT PLACED WITHIN THE REACH OF ALL BY THE METROPOLITAN MARINE GOLD COMPANY COME TO THE GRAND DEMONSTRATIONS AT THE COMPANY'S PLANT, ROGERS'S ISLAND TWO EXCURSIONS--MORNING & AFTERNOON

JULY 30

I read that poster, and wondered what it was all about. July 30th,--that was to-morrow. Then I remembered what the boy on the horse-car had said about "the Company" and the excursion. This was the thing he had meant. Well, it was nothing to me,--I had only to find out if Captain Bannister and the "Hoppergra.s.s" 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.