All the students, therefore, were soon collected on the wharf. As soon as Dory showed himself on the deck of the La Motte, he was loudly and enthusiastically cheered by his companions, who had learned enough about his exploits to understand that he had captured about all the laurels earned in connection with the robbery. Not only the students had gathered on the wharf, but every person, including the domestics, had rushed there as soon as it was known that the schooner had arrived. Not a few people from the town swelled the crowd. The prisoner who was bound to the rail, and Ripples with his arms still tied behind him, were in sight of the spectators. There was evidence enough that something had been done in the capture of these fellows. "Where is Dory?" almost screamed Mrs. Dornwood, as she saw Captain Gildrock on the deck of the La Motte. "Is he hurt? Has he been shot, or any thing?" "He is here, and he is all right, Patty," replied the principal. "Then, let me see him, and be sure of it," added the poor mother. Dory was just then pointing out to the officers the manner in which the machinist had secured the opening to the hold, and he was not in sight of those on the wharf. "Here, Dory!" called the principal. "Your mother wants to see you." Dory came to the waist, for he was devoted to his mother; and the only thing that grieved him in connection with the events of the morning, was the fact that she had been alarmed about him. He sprang lightly upon the rail of the vessel; and the moment he showed himself again, there was a fresh outburst of applause, in which the servants of the house and the citizens of the town joined, though the students engineered the cheers. Dory stood on the rail a moment, looking for his mother in the crowd. "Here he is, Patty, with a wreath of laurels on his brow!" shouted the captain, laughing. "I would rather have lost the money, and ten times as much more, and let the robbers escape, than had him run the risk he has incurred; but it can't be helped now, Patty. He has had a revolver snapped in his face, and has had a mortal struggle with the chief in an open boat in a heavy sea, to say nothing of bagging nine wide-awake ruffians at one haul of the net." But Dory had jumped down from the rail of the vessel, and his mother clasped him in her arms as though he were not a great fellow of nearly eighteen, and as though she had not seen him for ten years. The crowd cheered again when the captain finished his little speech, which he got off more as a pleasantry than as a serious matter; a sort of acknowledgment, which had been wrung from him by circumstances beyond his control.