Then we began to hunt in dead earnest. We pulled up every blade of grass, felt in all the crevices of the rocks, and dug a toad out of his hole. He looked highly surprised and indignant, but he gave us no help about the money.
"Well, I'm sorry,—sorry to get you into all this mess," said Mr.
Daddles. "We'd better leave it, I suppose, and go back to Squid
Cove. We can walk—and if that really is fog—"
"It's fog, all right," said Jimmy.
There was a sea-turn. The wind smelt salty and damp, and the fog was creeping in. It was not more than a mile distant. We all knew enough about fogs not to want to be out in the bay in one, without a compass, and when it was nearly sunset. So we hurried down to the boat, and pushed off.
"If anyone ever asks me if there is treasure on Fishback Island," reflected Mr. Daddles, "I'll know what to tell 'em."
The fog shut down thick before we got to the Cove, but we were already so near that it didn't make much difference. We left the boat at the slip where we had first seen it. The horse-car was standing at the house, but we did not look for the driver. Instead, we set out on our tramp back to Little Duck Island.
That was a dismal and tiresome walk. It was almost dark when we started, and quite dark in half an hour,—a thick, foggy night. Not one of us had looked at the road much on the way over; we had been listening to the car-driver's battles with crime. It would not have done us much good if we had looked, for everything changes on a foggy night. After a while we came to a fork in the road.
"Which of these is ours?" asked Jimmy Toppan.
"That's easy enough," said Ed Mason, "follow the car-track."
"Yes," said Mr. Daddles, "but there's a track leading up both of 'em."