"As much credit should fall to the rest of you as to me," spoke up Matt. "Take the wheel, Glennie. Full speed ahead, Gaines," he added, through the motor-room tube.
The cylinders never hummed a cheerier tune than they did when they started the _Grampus_ once more on her journey northward, and no boat, surface or submarine, ever carried a happier crew.
As day followed day and week followed week, bringing no sign of any further trouble with the Sons of the Rising Sun, Motor Matt and his friends realized that, beyond all doubt, they had worsted their wily foes, and perhaps had taught them a lesson which they could ponder wisely.
At Panama, which was almost the same as United States soil, the boys took shore leave, turn and turn about. From this place Matt sent a cablegram to Captain Nemo, Jr., at Belize.
"On the last leg of our journey. All well and _Grampus_ as fit as a fiddle. Telegraph me at Acapulco."
"Too bad that old canal wasn't finished," observed Dick, as the _Grampus_ left Panama, "at the time we left Belize. We could have come through it, if it had been, and saved a month's time and all that mix-up with the Japs."
"That wasn't the point, Dick," spoke up Glennie. "This trip has been in the nature of a try-out for the _Grampus_. The government wanted to see what she could do--and I guess the government will know when my log is read at headquarters."
"You're giving us a good report, Glennie?" laughed Dick.
"Then that means a sale of the boat, without a doubt."
"I understood that my report was to be final. I've had the cruise of my life with you motor boys, and I almost hate to reach San Francisco, because we'll have to separate there."
"You're an A One comrade, Glennie," said Matt heartily, "and you need never look for a pal while this outfit of motor boys is around."
"My sentiments to a t, y, ty," averred Dick.
Glennie was deeply touched. At the beginning of the cruise there had been some hard feelings between him and Dick and Carl, but as they had come to know each other better the unpleasantness had worn away.
All four of the lads were now loyal friends, having undergone perils and dangers shoulder to shoulder, and so each had tried the other's and had not found them wanting.