For the young driver was turning off the road to go to the very farmhouse to which the pier seemed to belong.

“To Sanderson’s, as I told you,” replied the other boy.

“Does that pier down at the water front belong to him?”

“Yep, though I guess he don’t have much use for it.”

“What sort of man is Sanderson?”

“Good enough sort, I guess.”

“What does he do for a living?”

“He farms some, but I guess that don’t amount to a lot,” replied the young driver. “I hear he’s going into some new kind of business this fall. Some kind of a factory he’s going to build on the place. I know he’s been having a lot of cases of machinery come over on the boat from Wood’s Hole lately.”

“Machinery?” echoed Halstead. Somehow, from the first, that word struck a strange note within him.

“There’s Sanderson, now,” continued the young driver, pointing toward the house with his whip.