utton, beaming
affectionately upon her grandson, as she spoke, "and you may be sure
that his friends are all as welcome as he is."

"Thank you, Mrs. Button," said George promptly. "If you knew how glad
we are to be here you might feel almost as if you were doing missionary
work in inviting us."

"She will think she's doing missionary work, I'm afraid," spoke up
Grant. "I want to warn you, Mrs. Button, that when George gets into the
dining room you'll have to drive him out. It's the only way we can get
him to stop."

Mrs. Button smiled as she said, "That's just the kind of a guest I
like."

Meanwhile Fred had not been with his companions when they had gone to
their rooms, for he had remained behind to talk with his grandfather
concerning the uninvited passenger who had arrived with them.

"Yes," Fred explained, "he was with some other men, canal-men we
thought they were, that boarded us between Utica and Rome and we
couldn't get rid of them. I thought at first they were going to try to
take the Black Growler away from us, but they didn't do that and when
Mr. Stevens came along in the Caledonia and stopped to help us they all
ran away. We didn't think that we would ever see any of them again, but
up here at Cape Vincent who should show up but this man."

"What did he come for?" inquired Mr. Button. "We couldn't understand it
at first," replied Fred, "but, Grandfather, we found under a cushion a
bond for five thousand dollars."

"You did WHAT?"

"We found a bond for five thousand dollars."

"What kind of a bond was it?"

"I don't know," said Fred somewhat foolishly. "I know it was a railroad
bond."

"What did you do with it?"

"We took it to the bank in Cape Vincent. We left it there with the man
who is in charge."

"Did you get a receipt for it?"

"Yes, sir."

"That's right. That's right," said Mr. Button, nodding his head
approvingly. "Go on."

"Well, when we came back from the bank whom should we find on board our
motor-boat but this same man, that we had seen on the Erie Canal. He
demanded that we should give up the bond."

"So he knew about the bond, did he?"

"So it seemed. But we told him we didn't have it. Then he wanted to
know what we had done with it and we wouldn't tell him. When we wanted
him to go ashore he wouldn't do it, and just stayed on board and said
he was coming with us. I thought it was better to let him come--"

"That was kind of you," broke in his grandfather, with a smil