Shipman's amused eyes ran over the outfit. The excited girls, the silent man with tea basket and the thermos bottles; he looked sympathetic.
"Little pink pearls?" eyeing Minga teasingly, "are you going to pick them off the trees, or take them out of the turtles' mouths? How much food have you there, anything substantial?"
"Loads," they assured him; "we're stocked up for the Bible multitude; we have loaves and fishes and everything."
Still the older man hesitated. It was a little audacious, but he tried his luck at playing "young."
"Take me with you?" glancing at the averted face of Colter and questioningly raising his eyebrows.
The two girls accepted his self-invitation gaily. "Take you, won't we though? We need another man." Sard glanced back at the figure in the back. "This is Colter, whom we brought to help us with the boat and all that; he knows the Hackensack."
Watts Shipman nodded in his usual friendly way, and Minga, wide-eyed, observed that Colter's recognition was of the same order, a quiet, courteous friendliness. The little figure in the scarlet cap leaned eagerly toward the famous lawyer. Shipman and Minga seemed on surprisingly good terms. Purposely the lawyer kept any memory of their last encounter out of his manner and eyes.
"Do you really know where the pink pearls are?"
For answer Watts, standing in the road, took a little phial from his pocket and displayed it. On a bed of cotton were four or five tiny seed pearls of cream color and soft rose. The two girls opened their eyes with delight.