With the heartiest thanks to the good-hearted captain and ample compensation for what they had cost him, the boys went with their belongings to the leading hotel of the town. Then they rushed to the nearest telegraph office and sent messages winging over the wires to their parents.
Bobby telegraphed:
“Safe and well at St. John’s, Newfoundland. Will be home by first steamer. Best love.
Bobby.”
The other boys sent similar messages to their parents. What joy, what rapture, those messages caused can be imagined. In a little while came the return messages, almost incoherent, almost sobbing, even over the wire, full of frantic joy and terms of endearment and thanksgiving to God.
Then a little later came telegraphic money orders, for of course the parents of the boys did not know but what they might be stranded and destitute. The money was really unnecessary, but Bobby and his friends were glad to get it just the same, for though gold is always gold and good all over the world, some of the coins were so old, and many of them foreign, as to excite curiosity and remark, and this was the thing above all that the boys wanted to avoid until they should have their treasure safe at home.
They bought new outfits, carefully stowing away the Eskimo suits which they expected to keep as precious souvenirs for the rest of their lives. Then they waited with what patience they could muster for several days before the next steamer sailed for the United States.
The trip was quickly and safely made, and in a few days the boys readied home and were folded in their parents arms.
What occurred in the Blake home was duplicated in all the others. Mrs. Blake cried. Bobby cried. Mr. Blake cried. Meena, the Swedish servant girl, cried. Michael, the Blakes’ old coachman, cried. Everybody cried. They could not help it. There are some joys so deep that only tears can express them.
When at last some semblance of sanity was restored to the household and Bobby for the twentieth time had gone over his adventures in answer to their eager questions, he learned in turn the events that had followed the disappearance of the boys. Investigation had traced them to the railroad junction where they had left their suitcases. The agent had told of their having gone to Bayport to see the circus performance. But at Bayport the clue rested for a while, until the finding of Bobby’s and Fred’s watches in a pawnshop led to the arrest of Lemming and some of his gang on the charge of robbery.