“Well, then, let me go on. In your book, here, I saw your father’s name, Jimmy. I know your father. He is Judge Willard Henderson of the Appellate Court in the city. I was admitted to the bar under him. He has a summer place at the lake above here, as I know, although I have never visited him there. I know your mother, too, Jimmy,—so well I should not like to cause her even a moment’s uneasiness about you.”
“Do you know my auntie, Helena Emory?” demanded Jimmy suddenly. I felt the blood surge into my face.
“Don’t misunderstand me,” I rejoined, “I only have some gift of the second sight, as I shall now prove to you. For instance, Jean Lafitte, I know your earlier name was John Saunders, although I never saw or heard of you before.”
“Well, now, how’d you know that?” demanded the elder boy.
“I did not promise to tell the secrets of my art,” I smiled. I did not tell him that I had seen the name of Saunders on the tag of a shirt somewhat soiled.
“Your father’s name was John before you,” I added at a venture. He assented, half-frightened, although I had only guessed at this, supposing John Saunders to be a somewhat continuous family name in a family of auburn Highlanders.
“He sells farm stuff at the hotel above,” I ventured. And again my guess was truth.
“You take the wagon there, sometimes, with vegetables and milk and eggs; and so you met Jimmy, here, and you went fishing together; and he told you stories out of his book. I fear, John, that your father licks you because you go fishing on Sunday. That was why you resolved to run away. You led Jimmy into that with you. Yesterday you took a boat from the lake near the hotel, and you painted her up and rigged her for a pirate ship. You rowed across the lake to the marsh where the little stream makes out—my trout-stream here. You followed that stream down, with no more trouble than ducking under a wire fence once in a while, until you came to my land, and until you saw me. You were afraid I might tell on you; and besides, you were pirates now; and so you took me prisoner. Marry, good Sirs, ’tis not the first time a prisoner has joined a pirate band!”
“That’s wonderful!” gasped Jean T. Lafitte Saunders. “And you say you have never been up to our lake!”
“No,” said I, “but I have a map, and I know my river heads in your lake, and that very probably it runs out of the low marshy side. Besides, being a boy myself, I know precisely what boys would do. Tell me, do you think I would betray two of the brotherhood?”