"Plenty good, Massa Bill, one leetle bitee bad!"
"Well, eat, old man; I'm hungry. Yes, the boys are beautiful, and they'll be here in a few minutes."
And so they were.
Brawn was before them. He darted in with a rush and a run, and licked first Benee's ears and then Bill's. It was a rough but a very kindly salute.
In these sky-high regions of Bolivia, a walk or run across the plains early in the morning makes one almost painfully hungry.
But here was a breakfast fit for a king; eggs of wild birds, fish, and flesh of deer, with cakes galore, for the Indians were splendid cooks.
Then, after breakfast, Benee told the boys and Bill all his long and strange story. It was a thrilling one, as we know already, and lost none of its effect by being related in Benee's simple, but often graphic and figurative language.
"Oh!" cried impulsive Dick, when he had finished, and there were tears in the lad's eyes that he took small pains to hide, "you have made Roland and me happy, inexpressibly happy, Benee. We know now that dear Peggy is well, and that nothing can harm her for the present, and something tells me we shall receive her safe and sound."
Benee's face got slightly clouded.
"Will it not be so, Benee?"