“H’m! so Miss Mary seems to think too.”
“An’ Mary thinks right.”
“An’ who may this Jake the Flint be?” asked the sailor.
“The greatest scoundrel, cattle and horse stealer, and cut-throat on the frontier.”
“So then,” rejoined Dick, with some bitterness, “it would seem that my friend and mate is taken up for an outlaw on the word o’ the two greatest men on the frontier!”
“It looks like it, Dick, coupled, of course, wi’ your friend’s own actions. But never you fear, man. There must be a mistake o’ some sort, somewhere, an’ it’s sure to come out, for I’d as soon believe my Mary to be an outlaw as your friend—though I never set eyes on him before the other day. The fact is, Dick, that I’ve learned physiognomy since—”
“Fizzi-what-umy?” interrupted Dick.
“Physiognomy—the study o’ faces—since I came to live on the frontier, an’ I’m pretty sure to know an honest man from a rogue as soon as I see him an’ hear him speak—though I can’t always prove myself right.”
Dick and his host were thus conversing, and the soldiers were regaling themselves in the hall, the commander of the troops and Hunky Ben were engaged in earnest conversation with Charlie Brooke, who gave an account of himself that quite cleared up the mystery of his meeting, and afterwards being found associated with, the outlaws.
“It’s a queer story,” said Hunky Ben, who, besides being what his friends called a philosopher, was prone at times to moralise. “It’s a queer story, an’ shows that a man shouldn’t bounce at a conclusion till he’s larned all the ins an’ outs of a matter.”