“But those men, poking around here, might have found it and laid claim to it, sir, if the boys had not come to the rescue,” declared the captain of the Go-Aheads, warmly.
“You seem to be a Mutual Admiration Society,” laughed the doctor. “However, if the boat is here and that express box intact, as Jarley says, I certainly owe somebody something handsome for finding it.”
“Oh, no, sir!” murmured Wyn, quickly, standing by his side. “You owe me nothing. Mr. Lavine has promised our club a present, and Polly and her father are going to be made very happy if it turns out all right. That is reward enough for us.”
“Humph! you feel that way about it; do you, Miss Mallory?” queried the doctor. “Just the same, if the Bright Eyes really is sunk here I must show my gratitude to somebody.”
“Then do something for Polly,” Wyn whispered. “Give her a chance to go to school–to Denton Academy with the rest of us girls. That would be fine! She wouldn’t let Mr. Lavine do that for her; but I know she’ll accept it from you, when her father has proved himself clear of suspicion.”
“Ha! John Jarley is a better man than I am,” grunted Dr. Shelton. “I had no business to talk to him the way I did regatta day. I’m free to admit I was wrong, whether we recover the Bright Eyes and the silver images, or not!”
And the question, Is it the Bright Eyes? was the principal subject of discussion among them all. The boys were just as eager as were the girls over the affair.
“If the sunken boat is all right–and the images,” said Dave Shepard, “you girls will be lucky enough to sail a motor boat of your own.”
“And we’d never own it if you boys hadn’t come forward as you did,” declared Wyn. “Isn’t that so, Bess?”
Bess had to admit the fact, much as she disliked praising boys.