The boys hastened to assure her that they would be delighted to eat the plainest of food, and their eagerness brought a merry laugh from the lips of the girl.
"You-uns is consid'ble amusin'," she said. "You is powerful perlite. I asked 'em to come, mammy. It's no more'n fair pay fer what they done fer me."
Then she explained how she had been caught and held by the rocks, and how the boys had seen her from the mountain road and come to her rescue.
The mother's face did not soften a bit as she listened, but, when Kate had finished, she said:
"They're yore comp'ny. Ask 'em in."
So the boys were asked into the cabin, and Kate herself prepared supper.
It was a plain meal, but Frank noticed that everything looked neat and clean about the house, and both lads relished the coarse food. Indeed, Barney afterward declared that the corn bread was better than the finest cake he had ever tasted.
Frank was particularly happy at the table, and the merry stories he told kept Kate laughing, and, once or twice, brought a grim smile to the face of the woman.
After supper they went out in front of the cabin, where they could look up at the wild mass of mountains, the peaks of which were illumined by the rays of the setting sun.
Mrs. Kenyon filled and lighted a cob pipe. She sat and puffed away, staring straight ahead in a blank manner.