send you a post-card, nice and pretty, showing the village store,” Harry said.

“Don’t you care,” Pee-wee told her; “we’ll take Grove with us, and he’ll tell you all about it when we get back.”

CHAPTER V—WE BEGIN OUR INVESTIGATION

“It was lucky we stopped in Bennett’s,” Pee-wee said; “do you think anybody heard us talking about the treasure? Did you notice that fellow at the soda fountain—how he was kind of listening?”

“I think he’s a pirate disguised as a soda clerk,” I told him. “Maybe he’ll foil us yet.”

“We’d better come in two or three times each day and get sodas,” the kid said, “then we can watch him.”

“Good idea,” I told him.

“Oh boy, won’t it be great!” he kept on. “When do you think we’ll start? We’ll go down to the library to-morrow and find out about that poplar, hey? And I’ll get a couple of big new bags to bring home the gold.” Jiminy crinkums, that kid was already on his way home with the treasure. I expected to see him the next day with a red sash on and a red cloth tied over his head and a dagger between his teeth.

I said, “Kid, don’t get too excited; I’ve got Harry Donnelle’s number all right. He’s not counting on finding any treasure. He just wants some place to go, that’s all. Maybe there’s one chance in a hundred of finding any gold. Don’t lose any sleep over it.”

“The automobile ought to have a name,” he said.

I said, “All right, we’ll call it the good ship Cadillac; that’s the kind of a machine it is.”

Cadillac

“There ought to be a mutiny,” he said.

“The only thing to mutiny will be the carburetor, or maybe the magneto,” I told him, “and then we’ll have to put in at some desert island and hunt for a garage.”

“Will the whole troop go?” he asked me.

“Not while Harry Donnelle is conscious,” I said. “I don’t think he’ll take more than three or four of us.”

“That leaves plenty of room for the treasure,” Pee-wee said. “Who will it be? You and I——”

“I’m going to ask him please to take Skinny, I know that,” I said.

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