The old man stared, then frowned, then looked blank, and then frowned again. Then he looked at Bruce, and said, in an uncertain, hesitating way,-- “Bucker nears?” “Yes,” said Bruce. “Buccaneers. They used to come here, you know. Lots of them.” The old man wragged his old head up and down several times. “O, yas; I dar say. Buccar nears--an lots of other fish, that’s left us. They used to come here in shoals--likewise mackerel; but them days is over. Sometimes shad an her’n comes here now; but things ain’t as they used to be, an it’s gittin harder an harder every year for us fishermen. It’s as much as a man can do, with farmin and fishin together, to find bread an butter for himself an his children. As to them--buck--buck--buck--fish, I don’t know. I don’t mind ever hearin of them, leastways not under that thar name. P’raps they’re a kine’ o’ mackerel; an I only wish they’d come now, as they used to when I was young.” At this extraordinary misapprehension of his meaning, Bruce stared, and seemed, for a moment, about to explain himself; but the other boys checked him, and the old man himself seemed to become suddenly lost in his remembrances of those days of youth, which might never be equalled now. “Won’t you jump in, an take a ride?” said he, at length. “Air you goin my way? Ef so, you may as well git a lift as not.” The boys thanked him, and excused themselves. They were not going his way, but in another direction. A few more words passed, and at length the old man bade them good by, whistled up his oxen, and moved forward. As for the boys, they did not feel inclined to pursue their investigations any further just then. “The next time we ask,” said Tom, “we’ll have to talk about Captain Kidd, plump and plain, and then perhaps they’ll understand.” “Well,” said Bart, “I don’t see what use there is in proclaiming to the whole world our business. We’d better cruise about for a while, and examine for ourselves.” “O, well,” said Bruce, “there’s nothing like dropping a quiet hint, interrogatively. It may bear fruit in the shape of useful information.” “Like the old man’s information about the buccaneer mackerel,” said Tom, with a laugh. Bruce deigned no reply. They waited here a little longer, and, after strolling about some distance farther, they went back to the boat, and returned to the Antelope. That evening Solomon addressed himself to Bart, secretly and in confidence, as the latter happened to be sitting on the windlass, trying to concoct some plan by which they might find the mysterious island that contained the buried treasure of the buccaneers,--the wonderful, the stupendous, the incalculable plunder of the Spanish Main. To him, thus meditating, cogitating, and reflecting, the aged Solomon thus addressed himself:--