"I am sure that we shall be very glad to do it if you think you are not cheating yourself."
"That's my lookout," said the newspaper man. "And, now, Miss Kincaid, if you will take a seat in the boat, I think we should all regard it as a pleasure to draw you the rest of the way, for I mean to bear a hand at dragging."
Katy demurred, but all the boys insisted, so she unstrapped her skates, nestled warmly into the boat, where Mr. Porter folded his fur-trimmed coat about her, saying he should be too warm with skating to wear it, and they set off gayly.
The plan thus made upon the ice was fully carried out, beginning that very evening, which was Friday; and on Tuesday morning Mr. Porter gave Tug twenty-five dollars and Aleck seventy-five—the latter "for the family," as he said. Besides this, they sold their scow for fifteen dollars, feeling that they had a right to do so, since, if the fishermen who had left it on the island (the name and position of which they learned) should ever return for it, they would find left in its place the Red Erik.
The goods that they cared to keep were packed and sent on to Cleveland by freight. At nine o'clock on Tuesday morning, therefore, the four adventurers—yes, five, for Rex was not forgotten—feeling themselves already famous in New York, and hence around the whole world, took the train for Cleveland, and reached their uncle's house in time for his one-o'clock dinner. All were heartily welcomed, and told their adventures again and again—in fact, until they became so thoroughly tired of being "trotted out" that Tug one day declared that he almost wished he had never left the island.
Chapter XXXIV.
A HAPPY CONCLUSION.
All the members of our party, to whose courage and independence of mind my story has borne witness, immediately and anxiously exerted themselves to relieve their hospitable relative of the burden of their support, and it was not long before they succeeded.