"Where?" said Quill.
"Where the Ark landed her passengers. Come along. I'm a dove, with no end of olive branch in my mouth."
They gathered their fish, and hurried into the boat, while he explained that the long absence of that shipwrecked young lady and her younger companions had stirred up a tremendous excitement along the shores of Pawg Lake, and that their rescue was no small affair.
"I have been kissed by any number of mothers and aunts, and have had to shake hands with quite a large body of men. You boys must come and take your share."
"Don't you do it, Quill," said Mort. "Let's go right home."
"Yes, mister. I say, give me the oars, and I'll start for the creek."
"Couldn't think of it, my young friends. I gave my word I would bring you ashore."
There was no help for it, and in what seemed to them a terribly short time Quill and Mort were the centre of a crowd of people in a big farm-house. They were compelled to eat again until they could not eat any more; but Quill remarked, in a whisper:
"Glad none of 'em hugged me, Mort. That woman looked like it."
The whole subject of the voyage of discovery came out, and when dinner was over—it was supper too, and almost anything else—and the boys declared they must set out for home, a big man, who owned the farm-house, and was father of the young lady and her sister, and uncle of the wet little girl, got up and said: