"Yes," said Mr. Daddles, "but there's a track leading up both of 'em." "Toss up a coin," I suggested. "I will, if you'll go back to that isle of treasure and find me a coin." So we chose the left-hand road. In doing so we chose wrong, for after we had gone about a mile we met a man in a wagon, who told us that the road led to Dockam's Hole. "We don't want to go to Dockam's Hole," said Mr. Daddles; "back to the cross-roads! I begin to think I'll never see my home and mother again. This treasure-hunting is all it's cracked up to be, --and even worse." The man peered out of his wagon. "Say, I'd give you fellers a ride, if there wa'n't so many of ye." And he whipped up his horse and drove away into the darkness. In an hour or more we reached the beginning of the causeway, and fifteen minutes later we were in Bailey's Harbor. "I wouldn't mind something to eat," said Ed Mason. "Some ham and eggs," I suggested. "And some of those mince turnovers," remarked Jimmy Toppan, almost breaking into a run. "And some coffee," said Mr. Daddles. "Do you suppose there is any of that chowder left?" asked Ed Mason; "it's always better warmed over." "The Captain must have had his supper long ago," said I. "And gone to bed, too," put in Mr. Daddles,--"say, do you know, it's pretty late?" To judge by the looks of Bailey's Harbor it might have been midnight. There was not a soul on the street, and only one or two houses had a light. "Oh, well, they go to bed early here." "Don't want to worry the Captain. He expected us back before supper." "We'll relieve his mind now, all right." "Gee!" said Jimmy, as we tramped down the hill, "but I'll be glad to get aboard the 'Hoppergrass.' There's nothing in the world so cosy as the cabin of a boat, on a night like this." The same idea struck all of us, and we hurried down the wharf. The fog had lifted a little, and blew by us in wisps and fragments. "For one thing," remarked Ed Mason, "I'd like to get into some dry clothes. I'm beginning to be soaked." "Oh, we'll be all right again," I said, "when we're aboard. The Captain--" I stopped suddenly. We all halted on the end of the wharf, and stared across the inlet. We looked at the spot where our boat had anchored, and then we looked up and down the inlet. The "Hoppergrass" was gone! CHAPTER V MIDNIGHT BURGLARS "What!" exclaimed Jimmy Toppan, "gone?" "Gone," replied Ed Mason, "sailed away and left us. Like old Aaron Halyard, in 'The Angel of Death'." Mr. Daddles looked at him and grinned. "At least, you remember your classics," he said, "you can fall back on the consolations of literature in a time of sorrow." "But he can't be gone," put in Jimmy, "he wouldn't sail off and leave us like this. He must be somewheres about." And he commenced to shout "On board the 'Hoppergrass'!" He got us to shout the same phrase. The sailor-like way of putting it did not please Ed Mason.