There was a roar, and the voices rang through it one by one. "The man who beat the Russians and the Americans too. The skipper who never went back on his crew. Ned Jordan of the Champlain who brought me home again!"
Niven long remembered them standing about the long table with the sea-bronze in their faces and the pride in their eyes that were turned on Jordan. At last he once more stood up awkwardly.
"Boys," he said simply, "I couldn't have done nothing without the rest of you, and with the same men behind me it wouldn't be very much to do it all again."
Then they went out, shaking hands with Niven and Appleby, who stood in the great hall of the hotel, to bid farewell to them. Last of all came Jordan, and he stopped a moment.
"I've been wrong a good many times in my life, Mr. Niven, and that makes it the easier to tell you I was more club-headed than usual 'bout you," he said. "Still, I figure there's nothing but good feeling between us now, and you'll not forget Ned Jordan if you come back again."
Then he went down the pathway, and the two lads stood still, until from out of the darkness down by the water-front a voice they knew raised a song and the last of it came faintly up to them—
"Shining gold in heaps, I'm told,
On the bunks of Sacramento."
Niven glanced at Appleby, and his voice was not quite steady as he said, "Starting home to-morrow—and we'll not see any of them again. Well, I'm sorry."
"Yes," said Appleby quietly. "I feel that way too."
CHAPTER XXII