"Did it, indeed?" said Leslie drolly. "You're just bursting with
sagacity now, aren't you? And your Sherlock-Holmes intellect is
seething with conjecture. The lover's soul is far above the sordid
earthly considerations which interest us ordinary mortals, but I'll bet
a hat you are wondering how it comes that a Boston girl is out here
without any more restraint on her actions than a careless brother who
doesn't bother himself, and why she's out here at all, and a few things
like that. 'Fess up."
"Well," acknowledged Bennington a trifle reluctantly, "of course it is
a little out of the ordinary, but then it's all right, somehow, I'll
swear."
"All right! Of course it's all right! They haven't any father or
mother, you know, and they are independent of action, as you've no
doubt noticed. Bill kept house for Jim for some time--and they used to
keep a great house, I tell you," said James, smacking his lips in
recollection. "Bert and I used to visit there a good deal. That's why
they call me Jeems--to distinguish me from Jim. Then Jim got tired of
doing nothing--they possess everlasting rocks--you know their lamented
dad was a sort of amateur Croesus--and he decided to monkey with mines.
Bert and I were here one summer, so Bill and Jim just pulled up stakes
and came along too. They have been here ever since. They're both true
sports and like the life, and all that; and, besides, Jim has kept busy
monkeying with mining speculation. They're the salt of the earth, that
pair, if they do worry poor old Boston to death with their ways of
doing things. That's one reason I like 'em so much. Society has fits
over their doings, but it can't get along without them."
"The Fays are a pretty good family, aren't they?" inquired Bennington.
He was irresistibly impelled to ask this question.
"Best going. Mayflower, William the Conqueror, and all that rot. You
must know of the Boston Fays."
"I do. That is, I've heard of them; but I didn't know whether they were
the same."
Jeems perceived that the topic interested the young fellow, so he
descanted at length concerning the Fays, their belongings, and their
doings. Time passed rapidly. Bennington was surprised to see Jim coming
down to them through the afterglow of sunset announcing vociferously
that the meal was at last prepared.
"I've fed the old lady," he announced, "and unlocked her. She doesn't
know what's up anyway. She just sits there like a graven image, scared
to death. She doesn't know a relocation from a telegraph pole. I told
her to get a move on her and fix us up some bunks, and I guess she's
at it now."
They consulted as to the best means of guarding the prisoners. It was
finally agreed that Leslie should stand sentinel until the others had
finished supper.