The trip home was quiet but beautiful. The boys were more or less disturbed over their captive, and the girls kept far away from him. What a pity it was, thought Betty, that people should be so bad in such a beautiful world. The sunset colors were just as glorious as ever and the sky was mirrored upon the water. “Where every prospect pleases and only man is vile,” she quoted to Larry, at the wheel, to his amusement. To him she related all the story of Ramon as far as she knew it. “How glad he will be to know about his mother and sister,” said she, “and that they are safe! And it will be wonderful for them. I believe I’ll send a telegram in the morning—or would you?”
“I’ll send one if you like, Betty—for you. But perhaps we’d better find out what Ramon wants first. He might like to be the one to open communication.”
“Yes. You are right, Larry.”
“Stay right by me, Betty Lee,” said Larry at this juncture, for Betty, drawn by his beckoning hand had joined him. “Don’t you want to learn how to steer a boat, much as you like the sea?”
“Yes, I do. Will you show me, Larry? You like the water, too, don’t you? I didn’t know it till this summer.”
“I’m very fond of any kind of water and most of all the sea, though I’m no goldfish,” and Larry laughed, looking at the waving golden locks now blown by the ocean breeze.
“How did you ever hear that!” cried Betty. “I wish the girls wouldn’t tell everything!”
“Don’t worry. I’ll not think of you as a goldfish, though that’s funny, Betty. But I think of you as Titania—on All Hallowe’en, you know.” Larry looked at Betty meaningly, and Betty smiled, but dropped her eyes before Larry’s. Fortunately Gwen and Carolyn came up just then to comment on Betty’s having the wheel. “Don’t upset us, Betty,” said Gwen.
“I won’t; Larry is watching me, and it’s only for a minute.”
The boys took Ramon to their own shack, while the villain was lodged in the village jail, after Ramon had been consulted in regard to the charges to be brought against him. There were plenty, Ramon said, theft, practical kidnapping and the cruel treatment that might have resulted in death. But Ramon was too exhausted to talk much. The man gave his name as Peter Melinoff, very different from that he had given Betty’s father, and the boys said it was a joke, for he was “no more Russian than a rabbit.” “It’s just one of his aliases,” suggested Archie Penrose.