"Did ye, now? Then ye're a brave lad; and there ar'n't many men who would have watched night after night in that ugly bit o' wood among the shnakes and reptiles. I wouldn't for the best brother I iver had, and there's five of 'em, and all sisters." Mary smilingly laid her hand on Dinny's, and gazed in the merry, frank face before her. "I'll trust you," she said. "And ye sha'n't repent it, me lad, for you've done no harm, and were niver a prishner. And now, as we are talking, I'd like to know what yer brother and number noinety-sivin did to be sint out of the counthry. It wasn't murther, or they'd have hung 'em. Was it--helping yerselves?" "My brother and his old friend Bart Wrigley were transported to the plantations for beating and half-killing, they said, the scoundrel who had insulted and ill-used his sister!" cried Mary, with flashing eyes and flaming cheeks, as she stood up proudly in the boat, and looked from one to the other. "Wid a shtick?" said Dinny, rubbing his cheek as he peered eagerly into Mary's face. "Yes, with sticks." "And was that all?" "Yes." "They transported thim two boys to this baste of a place, and put chains on their legs, for giving a spalpeen like that a big bating wid a shtick?" "Yes," said Mary, smiling in the eager face before her; "that was the reason." "Holy Moses!" ejaculated Dinny. "For just handling a shtick like that. Think o' that, now! Why, I sent Larry Higgins to the hospital for sivin weeks wance for just such a thing. An' it was a contimptibly thin shkull he'd got, just like a bad egg, and it cracked directly I felt it wid the shtick. And what did you do?" he added sharply, as he turned to Mary. "Where was your shtick?" "I struck him with my hand," said Mary, proudly. "More sorrow to it that it hadn't a shtick in it at the time. Sint ye both out here for a thing like that! Gintlemen, I'm proud of ye. Why didn't ye tell me before?" He held out his hands to both, and, intruder as he was, it seemed impossible to resist his frank, friendly way, and the escaped prisoners shook hands with him again. "And now what are ye going to do?" said Dinny, eagerly. "We don't know yet," said Abel, rather distantly. "That's jist me case," said Dinny. "I'm tired of sogering and walking up and down wid a mushket kaping guard over a lot of poor divils chained like wild bastes. I tuk the shilling bekase I'd been in a skrimmage, and the bowld sergeant said there'd be plinty of foighting; and the divil a bit there's been but setting us to shoot prishners, and I didn't want that. Now, ye'll tak me wid ye, only I must get rid o' these soger clothes, and--look here, what are ye going to do wid thim chains?" "Get rid of them," said Abel, "when we can find a file." "I did not think of a file," said Mary, with a disappointed look.