"Howly Smoke!" said Long Jack, climbing out covered with salt and fish-skin. "D'ye belave his tale av the kid an' the little four-horse rig was thrue?"
"I knew it all along," said Dan. "Come an' see dad mistook in his judgments."
They came delightedly, just in time to hear Cheyne say: "I'm glad he has a good character, because--he's my son."
Disko's jaw fell,--Long Jack always vowed that he heard the click of it,--and he stared alternately at the man and the woman.
"I got his telegram in San Diego four days ago, and we came over."
"In a private car?" said Dan. "He said ye might."
Dan looked at his father with a hurricane of irreverent winks.
"There was a tale he tould us av drivin' four little ponies in a rig av his own," said Long Jack. "Was that thrue now?"
"Very likely," said Cheyne. "Was it, mama?"
"He had a little drag when we were in Toledo, I think," said the mother.
Long Jack whistled. "Oh, Disko!" said he, and that was all.
"I wuz--I am mistook in my jedgments--worse'n the men o' Marblehead," said Disko, as though the words were being windlassed out of him. "I don't mind ownin' to you, Mister Cheyne, as I mistrusted the boy to be crazy. He talked kinder odd about money."
"Did he tell ye anything else? 'Cause I pounded him once." This with a somewhat anxious glance at Mrs. Cheyne.
"Oh, yes," Cheyne replied. "I should say it probably did him more good than anything else in the world."
"I jedged 'twuz necessary, er I wouldn't ha' done it. I don't want you to think we abuse our boys any on this packet."
Mrs. Cheyne had been looking at the faces--Disko's ivory-yellow, hairless, iron countenance; Uncle Salters's, with its rim of agricultural hair; Penn's bewildered simplicity; Manuel's quiet smile; Long Jack's grin of delight; and Tom Platt's scar. Rough, by her standards, they certainly were; but she had a mother's wits in her eyes, and she rose with outstretched hands.
"Oh, tell me, which is who?" said she, half sobbing. "I want to thank you and bless you--all of you."
"Faith, that pays me a hunder time," said Long Jack.
Disko introduced them all in due form. The captain of an old-time Chinaman could have done no better, and Mrs. Cheyne babbled incoherently. She nearly threw herself into Manuel's arms when she understood that he had first found Harvey.