m, who was pleased with
John Barrow's looks, as were also his brothers. "But can you spare the
time?"

"Reckon I can, just now. You see, the lumber company has got in some
sort of a tangle with the owner of the timber on this tract, and
consequently work is at a standstill. That's why you see so many men
hangin' around here."

"Then you work for the company?" asked Dick.

"I do in the winter time, but not in the summer. I've got a tidy farm
down the river a bit, and I let out my hosses to the company to haul
timber. It's cash money, you see, when the haulin' is goin' on."

"I believe the Laning girls are stopping with you," put in Sam.

"Yes, Nellie and Grace came up some time ago. You see, our girl, Addie,
gits tired being on the farm with only her mother, so we invited her
cousins to come up for a spell. They've had some pretty good times
together, so far, skatin' and sleighin', and the like. They are all
anxious to see you."

John Barrow had brought with him his wagon, and into this their outfit
was dumped, and a minute later they were off, down the winding and rough
road running along the bank of the river, which was now frozen to a
thickness of a foot or more and covered with several inches of snow.

"You say you know this locality," observed Dick, as they bumped along
over the frozen ground. "Do you know the spot where Bear Pond empties
into Perch River?"

"I know several such spots, my lad."

"Several!" came from all of the Rover boys.

"Yes, several. You see the ground around the pond is marshy, and the
heavy rains cut all sorts of gullies here and there, so the pond empties
into the river, now, at five or six p'ints."

"Are these points very far apart?" asked Sam, in dismay. "You see, I'm
very anxious we should know the exact particulars."

"Indeed!" John Barrow looked at them curiously. "Say, I reckon I know
what you are after!" he burst out suddenly.

"What?" came from the three.

"You're on a hunt for old Goupert's treasure."

"Why, what do you know about that?" demanded Dick. He remembered that
the writing on the map said, "Beware of Goupert's ghost."

"Oh, that's an old yarn about here, and at different times we've had
more'n a hundred folks a-hunting around for that old Frenchman's money
box, but nobody ever got so much as a smell o' it."

"Who was Goupert?" asked Tom.

"Goupert was a thoroughly bad man, who lived sixty or seventy years ago.
The story goes that he used to be a smugg