“How did you propose to get out?”
“By the same way you escaped,” responded Dean with determination.
“What an inconvenient exit! I speak from sooty experience. Why not have gone by the doorway?”
“We didn’t want to get shot,” said Jim.
“There was no danger of that. I have been spending my days in fishing, and my nights in sound sleep.”
“Do you mean to say,” cried Jim, “that there’s been nobody on guard?”
“No; you’ve been as free as air to go where you pleased.”
Dean laughed heartily, and the others joined him. The joke was on them, but they seemed to enjoy rather than resent it.
“You were right about brain and muscle,” observed Jim at last.