"Not as a friend."
"Well," Fay chuckled, apparently not displeased, "you're an obstinate young man, or rather a pig-headed young man, but I don't know as that counts against you. I'll help you out, anyway—if not as a friend, then as an enemy. You see, I have my marching orders from someone else, and you haven't anything to do with it."
Bennington bowed coldly, but his immense relief flickered into his face in spite of himself. "What should we do first?" he asked formally.
"Sit here and wait for the kids," responded Jim.
"Who are the kids?"
"Friends of mine—trustworthy."
Jim rearranged Bennington's coverings and lit a pipe. "Tell us about it," said he.
"There isn't much to tell. I knew I had to do something, so I just held them up and made them get down the shaft. I didn't know what I was going to do next, but I was glad to have them out of the way to get time to think."
"Who plugged you?" inquired Fay, motioning with the mouthpiece of his pipe toward the wounded shoulder.
"That was Arthur. He had a little gun in his coat pocket and he shot from inside the pocket. I'd made them drop all the guns they had, I thought."