"What does he say?" demanded Jimmie.
"He says for you to be on your guard—to look out for yourself—as he is coming on horseback. I don't know much French, but that is easy!"
Bradley hastened to the boy's side and said something to him in a tone which the others could not hear, the lad coloring slightly as he listened.
"He's jawing him for speaking French!" Jimmie commented.
"It looks like it," Jack observed. "Oh, I reckon we've got the prince all right. I wonder when we are going to start back to Washington with him, and if Ned will pinch that blonde beauty who brought him in?"
Uncle Ike stopped at the campfire and stuck his nose into Jimmie's pocket, looking for sugar. Mike III., as some of the boys insisted on thinking of the little fellow, dropped off and seized the animal by the tail and began to pull. Frank ran to get the child out of his dangerous position, but Uncle Ike merely looked around to see what it was that was pulling his tail winked one eye at Frank, and went on searching pockets.
"That mule sure gets my goat!" grinned Jimmie. "What do you think of his standing still while his tail is being pulled?"
By this time Jimmie had prepared breakfast, and the boys gathered about the fire with tin plates on their knees, and devoured ham and eggs, baked beans, and bread and butter and coffee with a mountain relish. Mike III. ate what was given to him at the first helping and then clamored for more. Bradley whispered something in his ear, but the boy pushed him off with a scowl:
"Alles-vous en!" he cried, angrily.
Jack snickered and Frank looked as if he had made a mistake in his estimate of the boy and knew it! Bradley drew the boy away, but Jimmie hastened to replenish his plate.