"You are quiet," he remarked.
"I'm thinking about Jimmy in the wilds. Do you mind?"
"Not at all," Dillon declared. "When Jimmy was around the hotel, I had no use for the fellow; now he's in the mountains, I'm bothered about him. Somehow one likes Jimmy, and if I knew how I could help, I'd start."
Laura turned her head and gave him a curious glance.
"Why do you like Jimmy? He's English and you're frankly American."
"That is so. To begin with, I've no pick on Jimmy because he loved you; if he had not loved you, I'd have known his blood wasn't red. Then, although he's English, in a sense he's our type. He's sincere; we are sincere, you know, and perhaps, from your point of view, we don't use much reserve. You can move us and when we're moved we talk and get busy. Well, Jimmy's like that; he's marked by something generously human, but I doubt if he got it at London clubs. Maybe it's his inheritance from the folks who built the cotton mill."
Laura said nothing. She doubted if Frank's willingness to state his grounds for liking Jimmy altogether accounted for his rather unusual effort. Indeed, she imagined he labored to get a light on a subject that puzzled him.
"Well," he resumed, "to know Deering went after Jimmy is some comfort. If Jimmy gets up against it in the rocks, Deering will see him through."
"Your trust in Deering is remarkable!"
"He's a white man," said Dillon with a smile. "To be his friend cost me high, but now I've cut out bets and cards, I'd sooner he'd got my money than another. You see, I got something back. The fellow's big."