and Captain Spark was to give his
services as assistant navigator in lieu of passage money.

As the ship was taking on part of a cargo of native produce from
the island she was not quite ready to sail, and in the meanwhile
Bob and the captain went about the island a bit, Bob collecting a
number of curiosities. The natives treated them kindly, and the
four who had saved the lives of the castaways by appearing in the
nick of time felt well repaid by the present of a few trinkets
which Bob and the sailors had in their pockets.

Finally the time came for them to take passage on the _Walrus_,
which was the name of the American ship. They sailed one bright
morning, and under a spanking breeze the big island was presently
low down on the horizon.

Bob was soon a favorite with every one on the ship, he was so
anxious to learn and so ready and obliging. He never grumbled,
even when the work was hard. But Mr. Tarbill never ceased
lamenting the fact that he had ever left home.

As for our hero, he seemed to have settled down in life and was
fast learning to become a good sailor. The pranks he used to play
were now a thing of the past, and he fully justified the good
opinion Captain Spark had of him.

It was a six months' trip home, for they were delayed two weeks or
more by contrary winds, and several days longer in making the
passage of Magellan Straits.

As the Walrus was to put in at Charleston, South Carolina, it was
necessary for Captain Spark, Bob and Mr. Tarbill to make the rest
of the journey home by rail. Mr. Carr and the two sailors secured
berths in the _Walrus_. Though Captain Spark had lost all his
money in the shipwreck, he was able to borrow enough for the fares
of himself, Bob and Mr. Tarbill.

Bob reached home a little short of a year from the time he had
left. He was a much better boy than when he went away. His father
and mother did not need to be told of the change in him. They
could see it for themselves.

"What did I tell you?" asked Captain Spark triumphantly of Mrs.
Henderson. "I said the voyage would make a man of Bob, and it did."

"The voyage or the shipwreck?" asked Mrs. Henderson.

"I guess it needed both," ventured Bob's father.

Of course Bob was the hero, of all his associates, and they never
tired of hearing his stories of what had happened. Later it was
learned that Second-Mate Bender and his men had been picked up by a
passing vessel and saved. As for Captain Obediah