Aunt Mercy and Faith were surprised to see them, surprised and pleased, too. And when, after they had drank all the water they wanted—which, by the way, took some time—she heard their account of the recent adventure. Aunt Mercy had quite a few remarks to make regarding foolhardiness. The boys listened very meekly, for, although the scolding was addressed to Jack, the others understood quite well that they were included in the audience, and waited for the squall to blow over.

“Hmph!” said Aunt Mercy finally. “Hmph! Now I suppose you’re ’most starved to death, ain’t you?”

“A—little hungry,” replied Hal. “But it doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters!” snapped Aunt Mercy. “Gracious goodness, how the boy talks! No victuals since yesterday noon—”

“We had a fish and a third apiece this morning,” ventured Bee.

Aunt Mercy sniffed her contempt. “No victuals since yesterday noon,” she repeated, “and now he says it doesn’t matter! Faith, why don’t you tell Susan to hurry dinner instead of sitting there with your mouth open and your eyes like saucers? And you’d better tell her to cook two or three slices of ham—”

There was an involuntary groan from Bee.

“What’s the matter?” asked Aunt Mercy.

“N-nothing, ma’am. Could I have another drink of water?”

“Hm; maybe she’d better not cook the ham,” said Aunt Mercy as she watched Bee hurry toward the big silver pitcher. “Tell her to cut some of the cold beef.” And when Faith had hurried out to the kitchen, “Now, I hope, you’ve all had enough of camping out,” she continued. “If you all insist on getting yourselves drowned, why, you can do it right here in the cove. I guess the water’s deep enough there.”

Hal looked doubtful, but Bee declared stoutly that they were having a dandy time and weren’t thinking yet of leaving the island. When Aunt Mercy appealed to Jack the latter disclaimed all responsibility. “You see, Aunt Mercy,” he said with a smile, “I’m hired out to Bee for a week, and I have to do just as he says.”

Aunt Mercy said “Hmph!” again and declared that she washed her hands of the “whole kit and kaboodle” of them. Whereupon she too departed for the kitchen to see about dinner.

“What’s a ‘kit and kaboodle’?” asked Bee anxiously.

“I don’t know,” answered Jack, “but it’s something Aunt Mercy’s acquainted with. Don’t worry, though; she isn’t really angry; that’s just her way. Wait until you see the dinner she’ll give us!”

They waited and they saw. It was a wonderful repast. Bee and Hal still talk of that dinner with enthusiasm. They each declare that it was the best they ever ate. There was picked-up codfish and cold roast-beef and baked potatoes and string beans and crab-apple jelly and much home-made bread, still warm from the oven, and big bowls of blueberries and many, many slices of spice cake. And they ate it all and finished up with a pan of chocolate fudge that Faith had made the evening before. It was really worth while being nearly starved to have such appetites as they had and be able to satisfy them!

At two Jack took a wheelbarrow and went to the store and brought back a five-gallon can of gasoline. Then they embarked again in the Corsair and chugged across the harbor to the town landing. Jack saw to the purchase of more gasoline, Hal made a hurried visit to his home and Bee wandered off to buy oars, boat-hook and provisions. At a little after four they cast off again and began their return to Nobody’s Island. Bee proudly displayed a brand new spade and Hal observed it without much favor.

“What’s that for?” he asked. “Haven’t we got a shovel already?”

“Yes, but now we can all work at the same time,” replied Bee. “One of us can use the pick and the others can shovel.”

“Gee, you think of the foolest schemes!” grunted Hal. “Don’t you ever have any pleasant thoughts?”

The return voyage was quite uneventful. The Corsair dipped and rolled along as though she had never caused a moment’s uneasiness to anyone. Everything about the camp seemed the same as when they had left but Jack rowed out to the Crystal Spring to make certain that thieves had not visited her too. When he came back he reported all correct on board. “They wouldn’t have found much, anyway,” he said, “but I’d rather they let things alone.”

Bee went down to look at the excavations and, had he received the least encouragement, would have started work again. But Jack and Hal were satisfied to lie in the sun and wait for it to come time to start supper. “It’s funny,” said Hal, “but in spite of all that dinner I ate I’m pretty nearly starved again!”

When Bee joined them he was again full of the subject of treasure hunting and tried to explain just what they were to do the next morning. But the others were decidedly unsympathetic. “Don’t talk digging tonight, Bee,” begged Hal. “After what we’ve been through we deserve perfect rest for at least twelve hours. It’s terribly wearing to be cast away on a desert island. Say, do you fellows smell anything?”

They sniffed and decided that they did.

“Smells like something gone dead,” said Bee. “I think it’s in the tent.”

Hal disappeared to investigate and presently returned with the fish they had caught the morning before held at arm’s length in front of him. “Something has gone dead,” he announced with averted head. “I think I’ll bury them in the trench.”

“You’ll do nothing of the sort,” exclaimed Bee. “Take ’em down and throw them in the ocean.”

So Hal, with a groan, descended the hill and obeyed instructions. Jack asserted that he was too tired to cook much that evening and so they contented themselves with a can of tongue, bread and butter and tea and turned in early thoroughly wearied out.

The next morning, a cloudy, muggy morning it was, Bee went back to his digging as soon as breakfast was over, and the others felt that they could do no less than help him. It was warm, back-breaking work and the only thing that rewarded their labors after the third trench had been completed was a blue-gray stone, in shape like an elongated egg, with a groove running around the middle of it. Bee declared that it was the head of an indian war club, but Jack said it was only a stone that had been worn by the water. Anyhow Bee added it to his collection. By that time it was nearly noon and Jack’s suggestion that they knock off work and take a swim met with instant agreement. The sea was smooth and oily and a cloud bank lay along the horizon. But the water was of just the proper temperature and they swam over to the Crystal Spring and dived off the deck and lazed around in the water and out until long after it was time to cook dinner. When, at last, a thick slice of steak was lifted from the frying-pan and apportioned amongst them they were so famished that Jack opened a can of baked beans and added that delicacy to the menu. Afterwards, Bee I think, wanted to dig again, but the repast had had its effect on even his enthusiasm and he joined Jack and Hal in their lazy efforts to hit the handle of the spade with stones from a distance of forty feet. It was while they were engaged in this amusement that Jack called their attention to a dory which had just come into sight around a bend of the river.

“The pirate,” said Bee. “Do you suppose he’s coming here?”

“If he does,” said Hal grimly, “I’m going to hide everything we’ve got! I’m glad we had the sense to bring the oars and boat-hook up here with us yesterday.”

“We didn’t go down to see whether the anchor had been taken, though,” said Bee. “Look, the old rascal is waving at us.”

Bill Glass was just rowing by the little wharf. Jack waved back to him. “He’s not going to honor us with a call, I guess. He’s got two lobster-pots in the stern and I suppose he’s going out to drop them somewhere.”

“I wonder where he stole them,” murmured Hal. “Have you missed a lobster-pot, Bee?”

Bee patted his pockets gravely and shook his head. “No, I’ve got all mine,” he replied. They watched the man in the dory row out of the river and finally disappear around the Clinker.

“He’s probably going over to Eight-Fathom Cove,” said Jack. “That’s a great place for lobsters, or used to be.”

“Look here,” exclaimed Hal, “now’s our time!”

“What for?” Bee queried.

“To get our oars back, and the rest of the things. If we go up to the old pirate’s place and look around maybe we’ll find them. Let’s do it!”

“Pshaw, if he took them he’s got them hidden away by this time where we’d never find them,” replied Bee. “Maybe he’s sold them. Besides, how about our digging?”

“Digging!” cried Hal. “I want my oars and my compass and—”

“If we do go we’d better start pretty soon,” advised Jack. “We don’t want him to come back and find us snooping around, I guess.”

“All right,” agreed Bee. “Can we go in the launch?”

“I think so. How much does she draw, Hal?”

“Less than a foot, I think. I’ll get the oars. Even if we don’t find anything it’ll be fun. I’ve always wanted to explore the river.”

Five minutes later they were off, Jack at the wheel piloting the launch carefully over the sandbars that in places came nearly to the surface. Once or twice the Corsair scraped her keel and once they had to make their way through a patch of eel-grass and Jack told Hal to throw the clutch into neutral so the long green strands would not bind the propeller. They poled through the grass with an oar and went on again, the river narrowing every minute but growing no shallower. By the time they had followed the winding stream for a mile or so the banks on either side had become so high that it was only by craning their necks that they could see over them. The sun, although not actually visible, was filling the afternoon world with a golden haze and making itself felt if not seen. Here in the river, cut off from the breezes that slightly swayed the grasses on the edges of the banks, the heat was almost intolerable, while the mosquitoes, which hovered about the launch like a cloud, were, to use Bee’s phrase, blood-thirsty and ferocious. The Corsair had to proceed slowly and cautiously both because of the shallows and of the abrupt turns and the boys were beginning to despair of ever reaching their destination when Jack, pointing ahead, called their attention to some rotting spiles standing on either side of the stream.

“There’s the old bridge,” he explained, “or what’s left of it. There used to be a sort of a cart-road through here. Anybody that wanted to could cut the marsh hay in those days and there used to be lots of teams over here. Bill Glass’s place can’t be much further, for we’re almost up to the railroad, I think. Climb up there, Bee, and see what you can see, will you?”

Bee balanced himself on the forward decking, fighting mosquitoes, and gazed about him. “A house about a half-mile over that way,” he reported. “At least, it’s sort of a house. And one to our right, a small cabin; two of them; or maybe one’s a shed.”

“They can’t both be on the river,” objected Jack.

“No, the first one’s away back, near the railroad. The other one’s on the river, I think. I guess we’ll fetch it in a few minutes. It looks as if it might be the pirate’s castle—or a pig-stye!”

“The other one is probably a Portugee shack,” said Jack. “There are several of them along the railroad. Any other cabin near Bill Glass’s?”

“Don’t see any. No, it’s the only one around. There’s a cluster of huts away down the track, but they’re a mile or more away. I guess we’ll get to Bill’s just around this turn, Jack. I don’t see how he lives here with all these mosquitoes, tough as he is!”

“If a mosquito bit Bill Glass,” growled Hal, “good-bye, mosquito.”

The river—although it was absurd to call it a river any longer since, as the Irishman put it, you could jump it in two jumps—broadened a little and the banks were lower; one could see across the broad expanse of salt-marsh and flats without straining one’s neck out of place. The Corsair chugged quietly and slowly around a long bend and suddenly two things happened; a heron—at least, Jack said it was a heron—took flight from the ledges with a startling beating of wings, and a little wharf jutted out from the bank just ahead.