On the following day they left their kind host and his family and began the return cruise. The summer was now drawing to a close and they were beginning to think seriously of the fall activities. They found that they had just time to sail home without rushing and it was with light hearts that they sailed out of Boston harbor on their return trip.
“Presuming that we won’t meet up with any more bandits or old houses on mysterious islands, we ought to get home in about one-third less time than it took us to sail down,” Don remarked, as he sat by the tiller.
“We’ll try hard to keep out of trouble,” grinned Jim. “Maybe if we steer far enough away from the shore we can manage to do it!”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Terry put in. “I rather enjoyed it all.”
“No doubt,” Don agreed. “It is great sport when it is over. Only, at the time you don’t know what is going to turn up and you get to worrying pretty much. When I was a prisoner in the old house I couldn’t see any way out to save my neck.”
“That’s the big part of it,” said Jim. “We might have been unlucky enough to have lost the Lassie. That would have been a real tragedy.”
“As long as we owe so much to Captain Blow, why not stop off long enough to see him?” suggested Terry.
“A good idea, Chucklehead,” said Don. “We’ll do that.”
The sail back to Mystery Island was uneventful, and they arrived at the captain’s cove five days after leaving Boston. They had sailed steadily and had covered the distance in much shorter time than they had required to run down the coast. The captain had not seen them come in, and they had their canvas down before he did come to the door and hail them.
He knew the sloop at once and put off in the dory, running out to them. In high good humor he shook hands all around and invited the boys up to his shack. They went ashore with him and spent a jolly evening at his home. There they told him of their discovery and the final capture of the marine bandits.