"I had a long talk with him an hour ago," replied Captain Wetherly. "He can't be budged from his resolution to take all the blame for the disaster. And of course his owners will try to shift it all onto him and they may be able to clear themselves in court. I can't help admiring his pluck. But he may come back here later, Dan. I have just landed a big Government contract for towing and dredging work, to last for several years. And I need more help with the business I have now. I asked Captain Bruce to come back to Key West when he gets clear of his troubles in England. I told him that he would be with friends here, with folks who believed in him. I would trust him as a partner. He will never go wrong again."
"What did he say?" asked Dan and Bill McKnight in the same breath.
"He was considerably touched. Said he would think it over, and thanked me, and went off to tell Prentice about it. He will come back to work with me some day, I am pretty sure."
A few weeks later Dan Frazier and Barton Pringle were waving their farewells to Key West from the deck of a mail steamer, northward bound to enter a preparatory school. Their mothers were standing together on the wharf and behind them towered the rugged figure of Captain Jim Wetherly. As the steamer drew away and the last "good-byes" were shouted across the water, Bart sighed and murmured to his friend:
"Father ought to be there to see me off. I can't realize it yet, Dan. But I must try to live up to the example he set for me. I am so glad he and Captain Jim became good friends. It was the Kenilworth that brought them together. I reckon they were the same breed of men, only it took them a long time to find it out."
Dan looked across the harbor at the rusty Kenilworth which was almost ready to be towed away to a dry-dock. The sight of her thrilled him with memories of the hardships, dangers, and tragedy of the weeks of hard-fought battle on the Reef. It came over him that while he had won his salvage and his fondest dreams were coming true, perhaps Barton Pringle had won even richer and more enduring salvage in the bright memory of his father's last deed, a memory and an inspiration unmarred by the knowledge of anything less worthy.
"I am proud of Uncle Jim," said Dan at length. "And you can always be proud of your father, Bart."
Presently the steamer passed the Resolute which lay at her wharf ready for sea. The chief engineer hurried into the wheel-house and pulled the whistle cord for all he was worth. The tug roared a hoarse farewell, and Dan gazed at her and the burly figure of Bill McKnight with glad affection in his eyes. They stood for something worth while to the boy who was leaving his shipmates to venture into strange waters and chart a new career. He had toiled among men who were fitly called "the Resolutes," and the lessons of duty he had learned afloat would not be soon forgotten ashore. Dan was thinking aloud as he said while he waved his cap at the powerful, seagoing tug in which he had played his part as a humble deck-hand:
"I don't know what this preparatory school up north is going to be like, but I reckon if I can play the game so the Resolute won't be ashamed of me I'll come out all right."