“Well, anyhow,” responded Captain Sam, “they are coming back of their own accord, and that is something in their favour.”
The colonel and the squire only sneered.
Meanwhile the little Spray came running down the wind in merry style, and the end of the next hour found her swinging up into the wind, with sails flapping, while the Nancy Jane ran alongside.
The colonel and the squire were at last avenged.
Full of wrath was the one, and brimming with wrathful satisfaction was the other.
“So we have caught you at last, have we?” exclaimed Squire Brackett.
“We seem to have sort of caught ourselves, squire,” answered George Warren.
“Well, never mind about being smart,” said the colonel, hotly. “You are under arrest for burning my hotel down. Perhaps that will take some of the smartness out of you.”
“Under arrest!” George Warren’s face paled. “It isn’t right,” he added. “We didn’t do it nor have any hand in it.”
“Guess you won’t attempt to deny that you were in the billiard-room, will you?” broke in Squire Brackett. “Because, bein’ as I saw you all in there, it might not do you any good to swear as how you wasn’t.”