"Why quarrel with them?" said Maud, with gravity and displeasure in her voice, but no fear. "Things are bad enough as they are. I saw that the minute we came in. Just one minute too late, it seems."

"That's horse-sense," admitted one of the men. "And when this rain holds up, one of us will take a message to your folks saying as how you are stopping at an expensive hotel and haven't got money enough to pay your bill."

"And that," said Colonel Meredith, "will only leave three of you to guard us. Once," he turned to Maud, "I spent six hours in a Turkish prison."

"What happened?" she asked.

"I didn't like it," he said, "and left."

"This ain't Turkey, young feller, and we ain't Turks. If you don't like the cave you can lump it, but you can't leave."

"We don't intend to leave till it stops raining," put in Mr. Jonstone sweetly.

"Miss Darling," said Colonel Meredith, "you don't feel chilled, do you? You mustn't take this adventure seriously. These people are desperate characters, but they haven't the mental force to be dangerous. It will be the greatest pleasure in the world both to my cousin and myself to see that no harm befalls you." He turned once more to the unshaven men about the fire.

"Have you got anything worth while in that mail-bag?" he asked. "I read that the safe in the Montreal express only contained a few hundred dollars. Hardly worth risking prison for—was it?"

"We'll have enough to risk prison for before we get through with you."

"You might if you managed well, because I am a rich man. But you are sure to bungle."

He turned to the woman and asked with great kindness:

"Is it their first crime?"

"Yes, sir," she said. "Mr.—"

"Shut up!" growled one of her companions.

"A gentleman from New York turned us out of the woods so's he could have them all to himself and after we'd spent all our money on lawyers. So my husband and the boys allowed they had about enough of the law. And so they held up the express, but it was more because they were mad clear through than because they are bad, and now it's too late, and—and—"

Here she began to cry.

"It's never too late to mend," said Maud.

"Have you spent any of the money they took?" asked Colonel Meredith.

"No, sir; we haven't had a chance. We've got every dime of it."

"Did you own the land you were driven off?"

"No, sir, but we'd always lived on it, and it did seem as if we ought to be left in peace—"

"To shoot out of season, to burn other people's wood, trap their fish, and show your teeth at them when they came to take what belonged to them? I congratulate you. You are American to the backbone. And now you propose to take my money away from me."

Colonel Meredith turned to his cousin, after excusing himself to Maud, and they conversed for some time in their strange Sea Island dialect.