Frank off the French steamer, after
she ran ashore."

"Ran ashore?"

"Yes. Down the Jersey coast. We got in company with her in the fog,
after the storm. That was yesterday evening."

"Down the Jersey coast? Do you mean you've been out at sea?"

"Yes, father; and I'd go again, with Dab Kinzer for captain. Do you
know, father, he never left the rudder of 'The Swallow' from the moment
we started until seven o'clock this morning."

"You owe him your lives!" almost shouted Mr. Foster; and Ford added
emphatically, "Indeed we do!"

It was Dab's own mother's arms that had been around him from the instant
he had stepped ashore, and Samantha and Keziah and Pamela had had to
content themselves with a kiss or so apiece; but dear, good Mrs. Foster
stopped smoothing Ford's hair and forehead just then, and came and gave
Dab a right motherly hug, as if she could not express her feelings in
any other way.

As for Annie Foster, her face was suspiciously red at the moment; but
she walked right up to Dab after her mother released him, and said,--

"Captain Kinzer, I've been saying dreadful things about you, but I beg
pardon."

"I'll be entirely satisfied, Miss Foster," said Dabney, "if you'll only
ask somebody to get us something to eat."

"Eat!" exclaimed Mrs. Kinzer. "Why, the poor fellows! Of course they're
hungry."

"Cap'n Kinzer allers does know jes' de right t'ing to do," mumbled Dick
in a half-smothered voice; and his mother let go of him, with--

"Law, suz! So dey be!"

Hungry enough they all were, indeed; and the supper-table, moreover, was
the best place in the world for the further particulars of their
wonderful cruise to be told and heard.

Dick Lee was led home in triumph to a capital supper of his own; and as
soon as that was over he was rigged out in his Sunday clothes,--red silk
necktie and all,--and invited to tell the story of his adventures to a
roomful of admiring neighbors. He told it well, modestly ascribing every
thing to Dab Kinzer; but there was no good reason, in any thing he said,
for one of his father's friends to inquire next morning,--

"Bill Lee, does you mean for to say as dem boys run down de French
steamah in dat ar' boat?"

"Not dat. Not zackly."

"'Cause, ef you does, I jes' want to say I's been down a-lookin' at her,
and she ain't even snubbed her bowsprit."

CHAPTER XIV.

A GREAT MANY THINGS GETTING READY TO COME!

The newspapers from the city brought full accounts