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182 Stanhope's disappearance, and the disappearance of the fortune, had spread.

"I was just thinking I might know something," answered Caleb Belcher, slowly. He was known to be a man who never hurried.

"What?" asked the three Rovers, eagerly.

"Well" The boatman slowly shifted his quid of tobacco from one side of his mouth to the other. "I was thinking I might know a little."

"But what? Tell us, man!" cried Dick. "Don't keep us waiting."

"It ain't much," was the slow reply. "I was out rowing, you understand—coming from the Point to Harden's dock, when I see a boat I didn't know, moving across the lake."

"Yes," said Sam, impatiently.

"She put across the lake, and she had two men and a woman in her. The woman wore a dark dress and a dark veil."

"It must have been Mrs. Stanhope!" cried Dick. "When was this?"

"About the same time they say the lady disappeared."

"Where did the boat go to?" asked Tom.

"Well, I was kind of curious to know whose boat it was, so I watched pretty closely, and she went in over there," and the old boatman pointed with his hand to a spot on the opposite shore