* * * * * It was well short of one o’clock the next day when the launch poked its nose under the bridge at Millville and chugged on toward Andy Tremble’s boat-yard. Pud stood proudly at the wheel, Tim officiated at the throttle, and Harmon sat on the stern planking with his bare feet on the seat below and observed the passing world with haughty grandeur, a grandeur befitting a colored gentleman recently come into a fortune! Behind the launch came the skiff, the only visible trophy of the pirates’ expedition, since, doubtless to Harmon’s disappointment, not one town had been sacked. And yet, as Pud had observed farther down the river that forenoon, they hadn’t done so badly for pirates new to the business, for they were returning with five hundred dollars and a perfectly good rowboat, and without the loss of a man! As the launch turned the bend above the island and the landing came into sight, Pud blinked his eyes. For a moment it looked as if all Millville had gathered to welcome them home, but a second look showed that the group ahead numbered no more than ten persons; a dozen at the outside. There were Pud’s father and mother, and Tim’s father, and Harmon’s father and mother and two small sisters, and Andy Tremble and Mr. Ephraim Billings and Marshal Bud Garvey and――oh, gee――Mr. Tully, the minister! Pud wished then that he had taken the new names from the bow. Here it was a Sunday and there was that lettering down there staring right at everybody and spelling _Jolly Rodger_! They were waving now, and Pud waved back, and so did Tim. And there was Andy Tremble pointing at something and laughing fit to kill himself, and Bud Garvey laughing too. And they weren’t looking at the name on the bow, either. They were looking farther astern. Pud looked, too. Then he wilted. Harmon, stiff with dignity, solemn as a judge, sat with folded arms upon the after deck, while, behind him, placed there unknown to Pud and Tim, the disreputable white flag adorned with the skull-and-cross-bones spread itself to the breeze! THE END Transcriber’s Notes: ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). ――Printer’s, punctuation, and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. ――Inconsistent hyphenation and compound words were made consistent only when a predominant form was found.