ty has told me."

"Do you like lobsters?" asked Mr. Nelson, looking over the top of his
paper, with a twinkle in his eyes.

"Lobsters?" repeated Amy, questioningly. "I haven't eaten many."

"It's a great place for lobsters at Ocean View," went on Betty's father.
"That's one reason I decided on it."

"The idea!" cried his wife. "To hear you talk anyone would think you
never ate anything else, and you know if you take too much _a la
Newburg_ you don't feel well the next day."

"I'm going to take only the plain boiled, and salads," declared Mr.
Nelson. "But there's an old lobsterman--Tin-Back, they call him--near
Edgemere in whom I think you girls will be interested," he went on.
"He's quite a character."

"Why do they call him Tin-Back?" asked Amy. "Has he really a----"

"A tin back? How funny that would be?" laughed Betty.

"You must ask him," declared her father. "I didn't have time when I came
down to see if everything was all right."

"Oh, what lovely times we'll have, girls!" sighed Mollie, when, a little
later, the four chums were conversing. "We can go sailing, bathing and
sit on the sands and watch the tide come in."

"And perhaps find buried pirate-treasure in some cave," added Betty,
with a laugh.

"Can we, really?" asked Amy, perhaps the most unsophisticated of the
quartette.

"Really what?" asked Grace, silently offering her bag of sweets. The
habit was almost automatic with her.

"Find buried treasure," said Amy, eagerly. "I should love to do that.
I've often read----"

"That's all you can do--read about it," spoke Mollie, regretfully.
"There isn't any romance left in this world. If there was a pirate's
cave it would be lighted with electricity and an admission fee charged.
And yet the New England coast ought to contain some treasure. Some
pirates used to land there."

"Did they, Mr. Nelson?" asked Amy, catching sight of Betty's father
again glancing over the top of his paper.

"Did pirates ever land on the coast near where we are going?"

"Well, perhaps, yes. I believe there are several stories about Kidd's
treasure being buried somewhere around Ocean View. Or, perhaps it would
be more correct to say that _one_ of Kidd's treasures. On the very
lowest count he must have had at least a double score, all hidden in
different places."

"Really?" demanded Amy, with glistening eyes, and flushed cheeks.

"Well, as really as any other treasure story, I suppose," answered Mr.
Nelson, while Bet