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110 "Then you know the crowd?"

"I do—to my sorrow, Mr. Barrow. That Dan Baxter is the good-for-nothing young fellow I told you of this morning, and Jasper Grinder was a teacher at the Hall. We had a big row with him and he was kicked out in a hurry by Captain Putnam. They are our enemies."

"Humph! That promises to make it interesting for you. But it's queer they should come up at the same time you're here," went on the lumber man thoughtfully.

"I might as well let you into a secret, Mr. Barrow. Will you promise to keep it entirely to yourself?"

"Certainly, lad, if it's an honest secret."

"It is honest," answered Dick, and thereupon told of the adventure on Needle Point Island and of the map on the table, and how it had disappeared, and of the finding of the second map in the brass-lined money casket later on.

"I am sure Dan Baxter has that other map," he concluded. "He wants that treasure as badly as we do."

"Then I allow as how it will be a nip-an'-tuck race between you," returned John Barrow. "The fust to get there will be the best man. O' course, with that map it ought to be plain enough sailin'."

"I thought it would be, but it will mix us up, now you say that Bear Pond empties into Perch