“Yes, I guess it did. Your boy Terry and this Jed, who was cook of the barge, run the craft on the mud bank last night and escaped. Oh, you fellows needn’t glare at Jed like that! Pretty soon you’ll be behind bars and Jed’ll be out free, where he can enjoy life like an honest man. So instead of clearing country you stayed to get the barge off of the mud bank, eh? Pretty poor judgment, wasn’t it, boys?”
“We didn’t think that these two would get to anybody, and it looked like we could get the barge off’n the mud,” began Maxwell, but his captain interrupted savagely.
“Shut up, Max! Don’t tell ’em nothing!”
The sheriff laughed at the captain’s outburst of temper. Just then they sighted the dock at Brockport and sailed up to it.
The inhabitants were greatly excited when the sheriff marched the three men to the local jail, but Atkins calmly locked his men up and then rejoined the boys and the captain and Jed. They went to his office and signed a formal warrant, after which they went back to the sloop. It was there that they said goodbye to Jed.
They had tried to persuade him to come with them but Jed had other plans. “I’m going to work here in Brockport for a time and then move on, probably to get back to farming somewhere. The sheriff says he can get me a job in a store.” He shook hands heartily with Terry. “I won’t never forget you, bub. My gosh! how you stood up to that captain, and now he’s behind the bars. Some little fun we had together, eh?”
“We certainly did, Jed,” laughed Terry, his red hair bobbing up and down in the manner which had given him his nickname. “But don’t forget that if it hadn’t been for you I would never have made it. It was you who told me of the sand bar and you jumped on Todd. The best of luck, Jed.”
Jed shook hands with the rest of the boys and then waved to them as they sailed back up the river. As soon as things were settled they all sat down and explanations came from each side. When Terry finished his story the captain was hugely tickled.
“So you just up and shoved that barge on the sand bank, eh? Jumping thunder, if that don’t beat all. You fellows do the darnedest things I ever heard of.”
The run back to Mystery Island took them two days, and they were glad to get there. They spent one delightful day with the captain and then got ready to resume their cruise. The captain went out to the sloop with them just before they were ready to cast off and shook hands.