"And we've got a good bit of bone and spermaceti, too," said Captain Rogers. "I consider you one of the crew still, Webb. Or, if you are so determined, you may pull out here and I will give you your hundred dollars as I promised."

"I feel that I should go home. Captain," I assured him. "As I told Ben in my note back there at Buenos Ayres, my money and letters were grabbed at the consulate by another fellow——"

"Yes," interposed Captain Rogers, beginning to hunt in a drawer, "Ben told me about that. And I went up to the consulate and had a talk with Colonel Hefferan about it. The whole thing was a silly mistake on the part of a clerk of his—a mighty fresh clerk. He went off half-cocked and gave the money and letters over to that fellow without saying a word to the consul himself. And they put you out of the consulate, too, I understand?"

"They most certainly did," I replied.

"If you go to Buenos Ayres, just step in there and make that cheap clerk beg your pardon. He's ready to. And here," said Captain Rogers, suddenly, turning toward me, "is something that belongs to you, I believe, Clint Webb."

There were several letters which he placed in my hand. The top one was addressed in mother's handwriting, and I seized it with a cry of delight.

"Know 'em, do you?" he said.

"This is from my mother—and this from Ham—and this one from our lawyer——"

"I reckoned they belonged to you. The crimp gave them to me with the rest of that fellow's belongings, and I took the liberty of sorting out these and saving them for you."

"They've been opened!" I cried.

"Of course. And why the fellow kept them I don't see. They're incriminating. But he was all in when the crimp brought him aboard——"

"Who is the fellow?" gasped I, in amazement.

"Says his name's Bodfish—young lout! I took pity on him when I saw him in that crimp-shop. He had spent a pocketful of money, or had it stolen. I suppose he is the fellow that represented himself as you at the consulate," said Captain Rogers.

"Paul Downes!"

"Like enough. Of course, I didn't suppose Bodfish was his re'l name. But he was an American—and a boy. I couldn't leave him to be put aboard some coaster where he'd be beaten to death. He hasn't been much good, though, aboard this bark. But maybe by the time we see Bedford again he'll be licked into some sort of shape. I put him in Ben's watch, knowing that Robbins might be too ha'sh with him."

But I was eager to read my mother's letter—and the others. I asked the kind old captain's permission, and dropped right down there and perused the several epistles which good fortune had at last brought to me. Oh, I was glad indeed that I had cabled mother from Buenas Ayres. And now I wished more than ever that I had gone home from there instead of shipping in the Sea Spell.

Mother had cabled me two hundred dollars. Paul had made way with it all, it seemed, and Captain Rogers had found him in the lowest kind of a sailor's lodging house, helpless, in debt to the keeper of the place, and unable to get away.

But I was not interested in my cousin's fate just then. I read mother's long letter with a feeling that all was not as well at home as I could wish. She had been greatly shocked at my disappearance. At first they had thought I had run away. I could guess mighty easily who suggested that idea!

She did not write much of Mr. Chester Downes; but she did mention the fact that when she had returned to Darringford House Mr. Hounsditch had been very officious in attending upon her and in showing her that she was a good deal tied down by the provisions of grandfather's will and that the lawyer was to advise her at every turn. Especially did she complain that Mr. Hounsditch had been officious since I was heard from.

The tone of her letter hurt me a little. There seemed to be some idea still in her mind that it was my reckless disposition more than the crime of another, that had set me adrift in the Wavecrest. She spoke of "Mr. Downes' great trouble" and of "poor Paul" as though they were both to be pitied. Otherwise she did not touch on the topic of my having been cut adrift by my cousin, or his emissaries.

It was from Ham Mayberry's letter I got the facts regarding my cousin and his father. Lampton, the man at the boathouse, and Ham himself had had their suspicions of what had become of me, and how the Wavecrest had been swept away in the storm, before my letters from the Scarboro were received. They had found the cut mooring cable.

Ham, too, had sounded the ne'er-do-wells who were my cousin's companions, and after the house on the Neck was closed for the season, and the Downeses had departed with my mother for Darringford House, the old coachman had obtained a confession from the young scoundrels to the effect that they had helped Paul nail me into my cabin and had seen him cut the Wavecrest adrift.

At the time I was heard from, Ham put all the evidence into the hands of Mr. Hounsditch, and the old lawyer had gone to the Downeses and threatened procedure against Paul. Chester Downes had flown into a violent passion with his son and had actually driven him out of his house, and Paul had disappeared. Of course, Ham at the time of writing knew nothing of what had become of Paul. There was a paragraph at the end of Ham's letter that was explanatory, too, and I repeat it here:

"I don't know what you mean by your questions about Jim Carver—that was his name. He was one of the three Carver boys—Bill and Jonas were as straight as a chalk line; but Jim always was a little crooked. He worked for the fish firm of Pallin & Thorpe, and I remember that he disappeared with some of the cash from their safe about the time poor Dr. Webb was drowned. Do you mean to say you have run across Jim Carver on board that whaling bark? Folks hereabout thought Jim Carver was dead years ago."

So that settled the mystery of the man I had come clear down here to the Straits of Magellan to find—the man whom Captain Adoniram Tugg knew as Professor Vose and who had met so terrible an end when the savages had destroyed Tugg's headquarters. It did not need Lawyer Hounsditch's letter to show me how unwise I had been in not making my way directly home from Buenos Ayres when I had had the chance.

The lawyer reminded me that my mother needed me. He did not say anything directly—for he was a sly old fellow—but he intimated plainly enough that he feared Mr. Chester Downes' influence in our home. I was almost a man grown, he said, even if I was a minor. "Your place is by your mother's side. The lust for roving was born in you, I suppose," he wrote, "your father had it, too; but put Duty before Inclination, and come home at once."

Had I received those three letters when I visited the consulate at Buenos Ayres, I would have found means of taking the first steamer north thereafter. Even the romantic idea I had of trying to find my father would not have set aside what I plainly knew to be my duty.

I was hurt that mother should so cling to Chester Downes as her friend after all that had happened; yet I could not blame her for what was a weakness, not a fault. She was the best and dearest little woman on earth! And she needed me at that very moment, perhaps. Nothing now, I determined, should keep me from taking passage for home at the very earliest opportunity.



CHAPTER XXX

IN WHICH I AT LAST SET MY FACE HOMEWARD WITH DETERMINATION

When I came up from the captain's room I stepped out on deck face to face with my cousin, Paul Downes. He tried to sneak past me, but I seized him by the shoulder and jammed him up against the side of the house.

"You lemme go, Clint Webb!" he whined. "I don't want nothing to do with you—now, I tell you!"

"I bet you don't want anything to do with me," I replied, eyeing him with some curiosity.

Paul looked as though he had had a hard time of it. He was dressed in the roughest sort of clothing, he had a bruised face (I fear Ben Gibson had punished him for disrespect, for Paul was just the sort of a fellow to try and take advantage of the second mate's youth) and altogether he was a most disreputable and hang-dog looking creature.

"I'd never come aboard this old tub if I'd known what whaling was like," whined Paul. "And now I want you to get this captain to let me off. You're going home, they tell me."

"I hope to get away about as soon as we arrive as Punta Arenas," I declared.

"Then I want you to get me away from this place, too. You'll have money enough to pay both our fares home——"

"Well, I never heard of such cheek!" I interrupted.

"Now, you do as I say. Father will pay you back. I'll make him," said Paul, as though he thought the whole thing was cut and dried.

"Why, you shipped for the voyage, didn't you?"

"Ye-es. They said something like that. But I didn't mean it," said my cousin.

"You'll find that sea captains expect a man to abide by the ship's papers. I don't know as Captain Rogers loves you much, but maybe he'll want to keep you just the same."

"He ain't trying to hold you," snarled Paul.

"I never signed on," I replied. "I haven't been a real member of the crew at all. But you were very glad for Captain Rogers to take you out of the clutches of that crimp at Buenos Ayres. You won't get away from the Scarboro so easy."

"I ain't going to stay," he declared, bitterly. "I don't like it. I want to go home."

"The voyage will maybe teach you something, Paul," I said, and I must confess I enjoyed his discomfiture.

"You better help me out o' here," he threatened. "You can do it."

"If I could help you, I wouldn't," I declared, with some heat. "Think I've forgotten what you did to me at the consul's office?"

He grinned a little; but he was angry, too. "You better help me to a passage home," he growled.

"Not much!"

"You'll wish you had," he declared. "I'll write your mother and tell her just how you've treated me. I've had a hard time——"

And he actually acted and spoke as though he considered himself ill-used! I never in my life saw such a fellow. Always blaming somebody else for the troubles he brought upon himself. I was soon tired of listening to him.

"Come! stow all that!" I advised him. "You're a member of the Scarboro's crew, and you joined of your own free will. The only reason I see for my trying to get you away from here is to have you arrested and punished for getting hold of my money at Buenos Ayres. I could put you in bad for that. You be thankful you are away down here on the Scarboro, instead of at Buenos Ayres."

"So you won't help me get away?" he snarled.

"No, sir!"

"All right. You wait. You'll be sorry."

"Now, don't threaten me any more," I returned. "I hope this voyage will do you some good. I think you'll learn something before the Scarboro reaches New Bedford again. We'll hope so, anyway."

He only snarled at me as I passed on. I had just as little to do with him as possible while I remained aboard the bark. We were at Punta Arenas in a few hours, and the very next morning the bark was warped in beside the tramp steamer and the oil in the whaler's tanks was being pumped aboard the steamship. The men were given short shore leave; but Captain Rogers put Paul Downes in the care of Bill Rudd, the carpenter, and made him responsible for him.

"I ain't got my money's worth out o' that greenhorn yet," declared the skipper. "He ain't earned yet what I had to pay for his board bill in Buenos Ayres. Don't you let him get away, Rudd."

I knew that my cousin would come to no harm with Captain Rogers. The cruise might be the means of making some sort of a man of him, at least. So I put Paul and his affairs right out of my mind.

There was a steamer touching at Buenos Ayres due through the straits in a couple of days, and I prepared to board her. Once in the big Argentine seaport I would take passage on a Bayne Liner for Boston. I was eager for the homeward journey now, although I felt that I never should be tired of the salt water. But, as Lawyer Hounsditch advised, I put Duty ahead of Inclination.

I bade my friends aboard the Scarboro good-bye and went ashore, spending the night before I was to sail for the north in a decent house near the landing. I knew my mother would be glad to see me and I had no fear but that, once beside her, I should find means of keeping Mr. Chester Downes at a distance. I had no reason to doubt the future, or what it might hold in store for me. That it did not prove wholly uneventful the reader may discover for himself in the second volume of this series, entitled: "The Frozen Ship; or, Clint Webb Among the Sealers."

I was not thinking of either romance or adventure, however, when I began my homeward voyage. I expected it to be quite uneventful, and was only anxious to walk into Darringford House, surprise my little mother, and take her once again in my arms!

THE END