The boy nodded his head in the affirmative.
"No use denyin' it, mistah, 'case yuh'd see our shack wen yuh git thar, anyways," he muttered.
"And you've been thinking we'd come up here to beat you out in the game—is that it?" Max continued.
Another vigorous nod, and a gloomy look answered him.
"Well, that's where you're away off, Jim," Max went on. "We don't care for the shells, and you're welcome to all we happen to gather, after we've taken out and eaten the meat. I suppose your dad means to get a load down the river, and sell the same to some factory that manufactures pearl buttons?"
"Yep. An' we was a gettin' heaps o' 'em; but if dad he draps off, it's all busted," Jim replied.
His manner told Max that at least he must cherish a certain amount of affection for his father.
"Ain't we nearly there?" grunted Bandy-legs, who had proven clumsy, so that several times, catching a foot in some concealed creeper, he had almost fallen flat.
"Jest a leetle bit furder, mistah," replied Jim, eagerly, as though he feared that these new-found friends might grow suspicious or weary, and desert him in his time of great need.
Five minutes later and they stepped into a little open space. The hill rose abruptly before them. Max realized that they must be close to the camp of the shell gatherers, even before he saw this opening, for he could detect an odor in the air far from delightful, and which he knew must come from a collection of hundreds and hundreds of shells, many of them possibly recently opened.