“Bob! Bob! BOB!” shouted Emily, quite wild and beside herself.  “Mother!  Father!  Bob is coming! Bob is coming!”

Those in the house rushed out in alarm, for they thought the child had gone quite mad, but when they reached her they, too, seemed to lose their reason.  Mrs. Gray ran wildly to the sandy shore where the boat would land, extending her arms towards it and fairly screaming,

“My lad!  Oh, my lad!”

Bessie was at her heels and Richard and Douglas followed.

When Bob stepped ashore his mother clasped him to her arms and wept over him and fondled him, and he, taller by an inch than when he left her, bronzed and weather-beaten and ragged, drew her close to him and hugged her again and again, and stroked her hair, and cried too, while Richard and Douglas stood by, blowing their noses on their red bandana handkerchiefs and trying to took very self-composed.

When his mother let him go Bob greeted the others, forgetting himself so far as to kiss Bessie, who blushed and did not resent his boldness.

Emily simply would not let him go.  She held him tight to her, and called him her “big, brave brother,” and said many times: 

“I were knowin’ you’d come back to us, Bob.  I were just knowin’ you’d come back.”

An hour passed in a babble of talk and exchange of explanations almost before they were aware, and then Mrs. Gray suddenly realized that Bob had had no dinner.

“Now un must be rare hungry, Bob,” she explained.  “Richard, carry Emily in with un now, an’ we’ll have a cup o’ tea wi’ Bob, while he has his dinner.”

“Let me carry un,” said Bob, gathering Emily into his arms.

In the house they were all so busy talking and laughing, while Mrs. Gray prepared the meal for Bob, that no one noticed a boat pull into the bight and three men land upon the beach below the cabin; and so, just as they were about to sit down to the table, they were taken completely by surprise when the door opened and in walked Dick Blake, Ed Matheson and Bill Campbell.

The three stopped short in open-mouthed astonishment.

“’Tis Bob’s ghost!” finally exclaimed Ed.

They were soon convinced, however, that Bob’s hand grasp was much more real than that of any ghost, and the greetings that followed were uproarious.

Nearly the whole afternoon they sat around the table while Bob told the story of his adventures.  A comparison of experiences made it quite certain that the remains they had supposed to have been Bob’s were the remains of Micmac John and the mystery of the half-breed’s failure to return to the tilt for the pelts he had stolen was therefore cleared up.

“An’ th’ Nascaupees,” said Bob, “be not fearsome murderous folk as we was thinkin’ un, but like other folks, an’ un took rare fine care o’ me.  I’m thinkin’ they’d not be hurtin’ white folks an’ white folk don’t hurt they.”