“I ain’t got my money’s worth out o’ that greenhorn yet,” declared the skipper. “He ain’t earned yet what I had to pay for his board bill in Buenos Ayres. Don’t you let him get away, Rudd.”
I knew that my cousin would come to no harm with Captain Rogers. The cruise might be the means of making some sort of a man of him, at least. So I put Paul and his affairs right out of my mind.
There was a steamer touching at Buenos Ayres due through the straits in a couple of days, and I prepared to board her. Once in the big Argentine seaport I would take passage on a Bayne Liner for Boston. I was eager for the homeward journey now, although I felt that I never should be tired of the salt water. But, as Lawyer Hounsditch advised, I put Duty ahead of Inclination.
I bade my friends aboard the Scarboro good-bye and went ashore, spending the night before I was to sail for the north in a decent house near the landing. I knew my mother would be glad to see me and I had no fear but that, once beside her, I should find means of keeping Mr. Chester Downes at a distance. I had no reason to doubt the future, or what it might hold in store for me. That it did not prove wholly uneventful the reader may discover for himself in the second volume of this series, entitled: “The Frozen Ship; or, Clint Webb Among the Sealers.”
I was not thinking of either romance or adventure, however, when I began my homeward voyage. I expected it to be quite uneventful, and was only anxious to walk into Darringford House, surprise my little mother, and take her once again in my arms!