At eight that night the Pollux stopped off the island. The dory, made sound and tight by the ship's carpenter, was dropped overboard, and the boys rowed into Sprowl's Cove.
Their appearance transformed the gloom that overhung Camp Spurling into the wildest joy. Budge, Throppy, and Filippo burst out of the cabin and raced headlong down the beach, waking the echoes with their shouts of welcome. Even before the dory grounded they tumbled aboard and flung their arms about the castaways. No brothers, reunited after deadly peril, could have given one another a warmer greeting.
Jim freed his hands at last, stooped, and picked up a package which he tossed out on the gravel. There was a suspicious moisture in his eyes.
"There's the piston-rod!" said he in a rather choky voice. "I guess we'll get our set all right day after to-morrow."
XX
SQUARING AN ACCOUNT
It was almost noon the next day before Jim and Percy rolled out of their bunks in Camp Spurling. One of Filippo's best dinners satisfied the last cravings of their appetites; but for a week they felt the strain of their forty-seven hours in the dory and on the buoy.
"When did you reach the Pollux, Throppy?" asked Jim.