Chapter XXV: The Treasurer Is Pleased

Larry was so surprised that about all he could say was "Great glory," though when the Riddle Club explained in chorus that Ella was very hungry, he hurriedly brought out the buns and crackers he had so carefully put away.

"Great glory!" he ejaculated for the twentieth time, watching the famished Ella greedily eating the crackers. "It's a mercy there wasn't a rain storm--the exposure might have given you pneumonia."

"I'm all right," Ella said sunnily. "The Riddle Club found me. But how can we get home, if your boat is broken down?"

Before Larry could answer this question, he had to hear how Ella came to be on Rattlesnake Island and how long she had been there. As soon as she told him about the spring, he declared that he must fill his barrel.

"Then we'll go," he promised. "I reckon there's some folks back at Sunrise Beach will be kind of glad to see this party coming in."

"Yes, won't Ella's father be surprised?" Artie said eagerly.

"Guess your own father will be glad to see you, too," chuckled Larry. "Well, who's coming to help me fill these two pails with water? I can find the spring all right if one of you comes along to show me where you found Ella."

The three boys volunteered to accompany Larry and the girls stayed with Ella. Larry located the spring without trouble, and on the way back he explained that he had repaired his engine.

"It was the spark plug after all," he said. "Fouled. I didn't look at it before, because I'd just cleaned it. Soon as I scraped it with my knife, everything was all right. Turned the flywheel, threw in the clutch, and she began her song like a lady."

"Then we really can go home?" Ward asked.

"Just as soon as I sign up the crew," replied Larry, grinning. "We ought to be home for lunch, according to my way of figuring, though my watch stopped after we came ashore."

No one felt like lingering on Rattlesnake Island a moment longer than was necessary, and at a word from Larry the girls and Artie and Ward took their places in the boat while he and Fred pushed off. Almost breathlessly they watched while Larry spun the wheel, touched the clutch, and then--put-put-put--sounded the engine and a spontaneous cheer went up.

"Isn't it lovely!" cried Margy, her face glowing. "Isn't it too lovely to be going home!"

Ella forgot her tattered dress and her blistered heel in her delight at being found. She asked about her pony--whether it had been found.

"I never leave him tied long," she explained. "And all that night while I was drifting on the ocean, I wondered whether Duke would be fed and bedded down."

"What are you thinking about, Fred," Polly asked curiously.

Fred sat silent, and she could tell from the expression on his face that he had something he was turning over in his mind.

"Why," he said now, looking up, "I was thinking--Larry, if you could meet a boat with a wireless, or put in at a town with telephones, we could send word on ahead. Even if we make good time, the news would get there ahead of us and save an hour or two of worry, perhaps."

"For a boy, you sure have a level head," Larry declared approvingly. "I know I wouldn't want to be waiting much longer, after a night of wondering and hoping. Let's see--'tisn't likely we'll meet a ship with wireless, it's too early in the morning for the coastwise boats and we're too far in for the ocean-going vessels. Better to telegraph, anyway, Fred. Quicker. You write out a message and I'll see it gets sent."

Fred complained that he couldn't think in a hurry, so Polly and Jess helped him write a message on the back of an envelope Larry handed him.

"All safe. Coming home," ran the telegram. "Bringing Ella Mooney with us."

"Better send it to your folks, Fred," Larry advised. "Captain Mooney is likely to be anywhere up and down the coast, hunting. Somebody will be at Meeker's Cottage."

So Fred addressed the message to his father and Larry sent the boat spinning close to a long fishing pier that ran out far from land.

"Hi!" he called up to the faces bending down to peer at them. "This is North Beach, isn't it? Will some of you send a mighty important telegram for us?"

Half a dozen promised to send the telegram, and it was the work of a minute for Larry to fasten the message and a dollar bill to one of the fish hooks lowered to him on a long line. Then the boat sped on, without waiting to hear the shouts of the fishermen, some of whom had heard of Captain Mooney's missing daughter.

Put-put-put went the little boat, and once it sputtered as though it was going to stop. Larry looked worried and the boys and girls held their breaths, but nothing happened and the evenly timed put-put sounded again. Pretty soon they began to recognize the shore towns. Then they passed Glen Haven.

"There's the Sunrise Beach pier!" cried Fred.

"I see the bungalows!" Artie shouted.

"There's the hotel!" this from Margy.

"Don't go to the wharf, Larry," Ella begged. "I'm a sight. I'd hate to have people see me looking like this."

"Can't get through the surf, anyway," said Larry. "That wind yesterday kicked up a heavy sea. I'll have to run for the inlet."

That he would do so, must have been surmised by the little group of people standing on the right-hand bank as the _Clara_ shot into the inlet waters and stopped at the floating wharf.

"Daddy!" cried Ella, almost leaping into the water as she tried to spring from the boat. "Oh, Daddy! Daddy! Did you worry about me?"

She was in her father's arms before she could finish her sentence. And tumbling from the boat with all her eagerness, the Riddle Club members found themselves held tightly in a circle of weeping mothers and of fathers who laughed as the safest way to keep from crying.

"Thought you'd play Robinson Crusoe, did you?" said Mr. Marley, lifting Artie to his shoulder. "Well, Larry, I'm afraid you've had more than you bargained for."

"How did you know we were on an island, Daddy?" asked Polly curiously.

"Didn't. Just made a guess at the Robinson Crusoe part," he answered her. "But we can't stand here--the whole town will be upon us. Come, Captain, we'll go up to the cottage and listen to the whole story. The children look as though they needed something hot to eat and then a good nap."

Captain Mooney was persuaded not to drive Ella home until she had had a good hot lunch, and Larry, too, was persuaded to go to the cottage. Every one talked very fast for an hour, for the fathers and mothers were anxious to hear everything that had happened.

Ella Mooney did not go home that night, for the little girl fell asleep in the midst of the story Larry told and Mrs. Marley put her to bed herself.

"While I never want to go through it again," concluded Larry, "I want to say this: I never saw a braver bunch of kids, or a bunch of better sports. They didn't one of 'em grunt or complain, and if they were afraid, they kept it pretty well to themselves. I'm proud to have had the Riddle Club on board the _Clara_ and I hope to take 'em sailing many a day to come."

The telephone bell in the house next door began to ring that afternoon, and it rang till nearly midnight. All Sunrise Beach was asking for news--had the missing children really come home safe? Those who did not telephone came to see for themselves, and Carrie Pepper, Mattie Helms, Joe Anderson and Albert Holmes were among these.

"How funny you look!" said Carrie to Polly. "As if you were sleepy. But I'm awfully glad you weren't drowned," she added, and kissed her.

"I'm going to bed in a minute--we couldn't sleep much last night," Polly explained. "Ella is already asleep and so is Margy."

"Where did you find Ella?" asked Carrie, and nothing would do but she must have all the details.

"H'm--she ought not to be going around in boats by herself," Carrie commented at the end. "Say, you must have left awfully early yesterday. Mattie and I came down to see you off and you'd already gone."

Polly looked everywhere but at Fred, and was saved an answer by Mrs. Marley, who came in to insist that Polly must go to bed and rest.

In the morning--the Riddle Club members and Ella slept seventeen long blissful hours without waking--Captain Mooney drove up in his big car with an outfit of clothes for Ella. Fred was already dressed and down, and the Captain suggested that while he waited for his daughter he and Fred "take a turn on the beach."

"How queer Fred acts," said Polly to Jess, watching the two coming up the walk half an hour later.

In the excitement of saying good-by to Ella, Polly thought no more of Fred's behavior. He had had an air of suppressed excitement, she thought, "the way he acts on Christmas," Polly expressed it.

As no one felt up to any very strenuous form of exercise, Mrs. Marley suggested that they hold a session of the Riddle Club on the front porch.

"Before the callers descend," she added laughingly. "You're sure to have a good many to-day, friends who want to see for themselves that you are safe."

Polly called the meeting to order and was about to proceed by calling on Margy for a riddle when Fred interrupted.

"I have an announcement to make, as treasurer," he stated.

"No dues!" Ward warned him. "This is an--an informal meeting."

"This is once when I don't care a snap about dues," said Fred, his voice rising as it always did when he was excited. "Look at that--you fellows who squawk when I ask you for ten cents!"

He laid a slip of green paper in Polly's lap and the others crowded about her.

"A hundred dollars!" cried Polly, in amazement. "A check for a hundred dollars, payable to the Riddle Club. Why, Fred!"

"Captain Mooney gave it to me this morning and made me promise not to tell till he'd gone," Fred said. "It's the reward for the information about Ella, you know. He said he'd asked our fathers, and it's all right for us to have it. And, gee, won't the teller in the River Bend Bank open his eyes when he sees that!"

"Now I don't care if Mother wouldn't let me take the ring money," declared Margy contentedly. "This is lots nicer."

Jess rushed into the house to bring the three mothers out to admire the check. In the midst of their talk a small, barefoot boy came up the walk.

"I found this in the water this morning, and Larry opened it," he said shyly. "He says it's yours."

He handed the tin box to Fred, who jerked the cover off.

"It's the box we floated the night we had the beach party!" he chuckled. "Here's the messages, just as we wrote them. They didn't get to China, after all."

"Who cares?" said Polly recklessly. "Ella Mooney isn't lost, and we don't have to live on Rattlesnake Island, and we have a hundred dollars to add to our club fund! What do we care whether the Chinese read our messages or not?"

"I'd like the box to play with," the boy announced, so they gave it to him just as another visitor turned in at their gravel path.

"I thought I'd come see how you are," said Carrie Pepper. "What makes you look so excited--somebody leave you a fortune?"

THE END

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