“Didn’t see no one else coming across the causeway, didger?” he inquired.

“Not a soul.”  I

“Guess I might’s well start, then.”

He pulled a watch out of his pocket.

“What do you make it?”

Not one of us had a watch, so we couldn’t make it anything at all.  We thought it was about two o’clock.

“’Taint,” said the car-driver decidedly, with the air of a man nipping a fraud in the bud.  “It’s one fifty four.  Didn’t know but what Ike Flanders would be coming over, an’ trying to bum his way with me as usual.  Well, climb aboard, an’ we’ll get under way.”

All the way to Squid Cove he entertained us with an account of Ike Flanders’ many attempts to get a ride for nothing.  He had never succeeded, owing to the watchfulness of the driver.  His whole life—­the driver’s—­seemed to have consisted of a warfare against rascals and swindlers.  People were always coming around with some scheme to cheat him, but he had defeated them all.  When he found that we were going to row across to Fishback Island, he said he guessed he could let us take a boat,—­for fifteen cents.  It came out that he not only drove the horse-car, but sold fish and lobsters, ran a boarding-house, and had one or two boats to let.  He left the horse-car standing in front of his house, and came down to the water to show us the boat.

“Better row round to the west’ard a little, when you get to Fishback,” said he, “it’s kinder choppy on this side sometimes, an’ if my boat got all stove to pieces on the rocks ’fore you got ashore, why, where’d I be?”

“You would be right here,” said Mr. Daddles; “where do you think we’d be?”

“You?  Oh, huh!  Yes, that’s so.  Well, p’r’aps you might as well give me the fifteen cents now, if it’s all the same to you.”

“It’s exactly the same to me,” replied our friend.  And he handed over the money.  The man looked at it carefully, and then went back to his home.

“What do you suppose he’s going to do with that money?” I wondered.

“I know,” said Jimmy Toppan, “he’s going to hurry off and put it in the bank, before Ike Flanders tries to get it away from him.”

“No,” said Mr. Daddles, “he’s going to bury it in his garden.”  “First,” remarked Ed Mason, “he’ll take it into the house and test it with acid, to see if it’s genuine.”

“He thinks we’re a gang of bunco men,” Mr. Daddles reflected.  “I wonder why he trusts us with his boat.”

“He knows that no one would be foolish enough to steal it,” said Jimmy; “look at it!”

It was a shabby and ill-kept dory, dirty, and with half an inch of dirty water washing about in it.  But we didn’t care.  Almost any boat is good enough when you are looking for buried treasure.  We set out, with Mr. Daddles and Jimmy rowing.  A breeze had sprung up and the bay was a little choppy, so we splashed and bumped along at no great speed.  Mr. Daddles did not pay much attention to the management of his long oar, but got into a discussion with Jimmy about what they would buy with their share of the treasure.  Jimmy said his first choice would be a sailing yacht.  Next, after that, he thought he should buy a steam-yacht.  Mr. Daddles said he should buy a piano.