"And will you pay back the money on the note?"
"Every penny, with interest, if you don't have me arrested."
"What do you say, Nat?" asked Mr. Weatherby.
"I have no desire to see him arrested, though I think he tried to injure me in other ways than by keeping this money from me. But I forgive him," answered the boy.
"I think that is the best way," went on the pilot. "You have been punished almost enough, Bumstead. I hope it will be a lesson to you."
"It will. Mr. Morton was kind to me, and I treated his son very wrong. I'm—I'm sorry," and the mate turned his face away, so they would not see him weeping.
Nat was glad to get away from the sad scene. On his way out he passed Sam Shaw, but that youth had nothing to say, and he turned aside.
"I feel that I owe you an apology," said Captain Carter to Captain Turton. "I'll discharge that rascal of a mate and his red-headed nephew, too."
About two weeks later, through the efforts of Mr. Scanlon, the lawyer who took charge of the case for Nat, the entire sum appropriated by the mate, together with interest for two years, was recovered, and turned over to the young pilot, who also received his father's wallet, which he prized very much. Bumstead and Sam lost their places on the Liberty Bell, and at last accounts they were working as laborers aboard a grain barge, for the mate had to sell his shares in the Jessie Drew to pay Nat what was coming to the boy. Sam confessed his trick about the cigarettes, and Captain Marshall, when he heard about it, begged Nat's pardon in a letter.
"Well," said Mr. Weatherby to Nat one day, "since you have come into your inheritance, I suppose you'll give up learning to be a pilot?"