"
"I'll do the best I can," repeated Bennington doggedly.
"And you won't ask help of a friend ready to give it?"
"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.
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