“You girls are trying to make too much of a hero of me,” he protested, smiling at their eagerness to welcome him back.
At the house he speedily convinced his mother that he was in no danger from his wound, and the girls continued to besiege him with questions concerning the night raid. He was seated in one of the large easy chairs in the library and every once in a while Josephine left him for a mysterious visit to the kitchen.
He could hear the rattle of dishes and a savory smell of cooking filled the room every time she opened the door.
“We are going to have Bud and Scotty dine with us,” Josephine announced after one of her visits. “And there will be just those two, with you, Ethel and myself. Pomp is doing himself proud. I told him he is to be our steady cook, as the cowboys are going to have the negro woman to cook for them in the future. I have arranged it with Dad, and you know he just about lets me have my own way in most things. I have always wanted Pomp for our steady cook and he will take a lot of hard work off of mother. All I can get out of Pomp is, ‘Yes, Missus, ’deed Missus, I will show dem gem-mens I can shore cook,’ and he is grinning from ear to ear.”
Soon Bud and Scotty arrived, and a little later Pomp announced that the meal was served, while Josephine conducted them to the dining-room where plates for five were laid. It was more of a banquet than a dinner, and during the meal Mason, with the help of Bud and Scotty, furnished the girls with all the details of the night’s raid. Ethel and Josephine listened with eyes open wide in astonishment when they came to the part in the story about the secret passage and the counterfeiter’s den, but when Mason told them of Trent Burton’s part in the raid they were amazed.
“And to think that man took us all in like that!” Josephine cried in wonder. “Sir Jack, did you have any idea that MacNutt was anything more than he pretended to be?”
She shook her finger playfully at him.
“No,” he answered slowly, as all eyes were turned upon him. “But I did seem to place a lot of confidence in him, and really I can’t explain the reason why. At times I felt the man was playing a double game, but that was as far as I could get with him, and you may be sure I was as surprised as anyone in the room when he called the turn on Ricker.”
“I admit that I took him for a plain damn fool all the time,” Bud said shortly.
Scotty nodded his head vigorously.