“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 shore 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 ‘Hoppergrass.’  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.”