ght as well come out square with the truth; and
he told how they made up their minds, after they found that the steamer
had really started, with them on board, not to make any fuss about it,
nor give anybody any trouble to stop the ship, or to put back, but just
to stay quietly on board, and go back with the pilot. They thought that
would be most convenient, all around.

"Go back with the pilot!" the captain cried. "Why, you young idiot,
there _is_ no pilot! Coastwise steamers don't carry pilots. I am my own
pilot. There is no pilot going back!"

You ought to have seen Scott's face!

[Illustration: SCOTT AND THE CAPTAIN.]

Nobody said anything. We all just stood and looked at the captain. Tears
began to come into the eyes of Tom Myers and his brother George.

"What are they to do?" asked the purser of the captain. "Buy tickets for
Savannah?"

"We can't do that," said Scott, quickly. "We haven't any money."

"I don't know what they're to do," replied the captain. "I'd like to
chuck 'em overboard." And with this agreeable little speech he walked
away.

The purser now took the two tickets for Rectus and myself, and saying:
"We'll see what's to be done with the rest of you fellows," he walked
away, too.

Then we all looked at one another. We were a pretty pale lot, and I
believe that Rectus and I, who were all right, felt almost as badly as
the four other boys, who were all wrong.

"We _can't_ go to Savannah!" said Harry Alden. "What right have they to
take us to Savannah?"

"Well, then, you'd better get out and go home," said Scott. "I don't so
much mind their taking us to Savannah, for they can't make us pay if we
haven't any money. But how are we going to get back? That's the
question. And what'll the professor think? He'll write home that we've
run away. And what'll we do in Savannah without any money?"

"You'd better have thought of some of these things before you got us
into waiting to go back with the pilot," said Harry.

As for Tom Myers and his brother George, they just sat down and put
their arms on the railing, and clapped their faces down on their arms.
They cried all over their coat-sleeves, but kept as quiet as they could
about it. Whenever these two boys had to cry before any of the rest of
the school-fellows, they had learned to keep very quiet about it.

While the rest of us were talking away, and Scott and Harry finding
fault with each other, the captain came back. He looked in a little
b