"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