“This very evening we could have retrieved every piece of the silver, and I haven’t the slightest doubt we could also have gotten that box of jewels. Why didn’t we?”
No one replied; they waited for Frank to reply to his own question.
“Simply because we were selfish, thoughtful only of our own reputations. That’s rough, but it’s true, isn’t it?”
“But if we don’t think of our own reputations when our motives are impugned, who is going to help us?” Lanky came fighting back to the aid of themselves and their first ideas.
“Quite so, Lanky,” Frank replied slowly, as they drew nearer and nearer to Columbia. “But the facts are just as I have stated. Now, if they be true, what is our best move? Isn’t it to report to the chief of Police?”
The boys felt that there was nothing but to admit it was the straightforward thing to do—leaving their reputations in the hands of the chief or of the public when the story should be told.
It being agreed among them, no other course suggesting itself to any of them, they fell silent while the Rocket headed straight for its boat-house on the Harrapin.
“Well,” said Paul, “I’ve enjoyed the day immensely, and we’ve learned more than we expected to when we started. Now, as to the outcome.”
“I feel that things will come out all right in the end,” Frank replied serenely. “There is a path that we must follow—the rules of right living demand that—and we shall merely follow that path. It runs straight, to say the least.”
The Rocket ran slowly, easily, quietly into the boat-house, and everything was made ready for the night. It was already well past dark, and along the river front all was still.