CHAPTER XXIV

THE END OF THE CRUISE

President Mosley, accompanied by Uncle Dan, Redfern and Pierre Dufour, entered the Academy building, while the boys wandered off to the athletic field. The events, rapid and unexpected, and the happy termination of the house-boat trip, had put everybody in the best of humor.

The Ripley flag still floated proudly from the top of the pole. Bill Stiles and his followers, hot, victorious, husky-voiced and tired, marched around the field. They had won the second event, and Ripley was crowned with glory.

Owen Andrews picked up his tin horn. It was now a battered and twisted wreck.

Andrews looked at it sadly, put it to his lips, and, with a tremendous effort, managed to draw forth a thin, dismal groan.

“Too bad it didn’t last for just one more blow,” put in George Clayton.

“Why, Bill number one?” demanded Stiles.

“Because I intend to enter Ripley,” answered George, calmly.

The hoots, yells and jeers which this remark brought forth from the Thorntons filled the hearts of the Ripleys with pure, unalloyed joy.

“I say, Joe Preston,” remarked Fred Winter, abruptly, “I knew it.”

“Knew what?”

“That you wouldn’t do a stroke of work on the history of our trip.”

“But I have; I wrote the heading. When I get home, I’ll finish it sure,” laughed Joe. “Anyway, I have an idea.”

“What is it?”

“We’ll try to get the governor to put a bill through the legislature for the state to buy the ‘Gray Gull’ and place it in a museum.”

“You silly thing! Do be serious.”

“Let’s see: there was the ‘Half-moon,’ the ‘Clermont,’ and now the ‘Gray Gull.’ I’m going to put that in my history, too.”

“One thing we came near forgetting, fellows,” put in Jack Lyons. He seized Aleck Hunt by the shoulder. “How about that story of yours?”

“That’s so,” chorused the others.

“What story?”

“What story? Why, about Joe Archer and Battery Park, of course.”

“Oh, yes! Do you fellows really think I’m going to tell it now?”

“You bet we do.”

“Well, I put it in pickle some time ago; and the jar’s been left on the house-boat. It won’t be taken out before I get a bite to eat—no siree.” And Aleck backed away.

Joe Preston winked at the others; his grin grew to positively enormous dimensions. Then he burst into a loud, long laugh.

“I wonder what we’re going to do next, Bob?”

It was Tom that asked the question.

“Well, Ramblers,” spoke up Jack Lyons, heartily, “we’ve had such a jolly good time on this trip I should say we’d all better take another.”

“Hooray!” shouted his hearers. “That’s what we’ll do.”