He stirred the fire to a brighter blaze as they entered, and the leaping flames disclosed a dark-haired child of perhaps seven years asleep on a bed in a corner of the small room. Without speaking, without so much as a glance at the visitor, the old lady walked swiftly to the bed and took the child in her arms.
The boy opened his eyes and started to cry, but she quieted him with low words and sat down on the edge of the bed, swinging him back and forth with a motion of her arms and shoulders. The man at the fire glanced sharply at the woman and then turned his eyes to the boys, now standing not far from the bed.
"The little dear!" the woman cried, mothering the child. "He"s all tired out with his long journey!"
"This is the man that brung the boy in," Buck said, pointing to the figure by the fire. "A mess of a time he must have had of it, too."
"You are the grandmother?" asked the stranger. "Yes, I understand.
And are these boys your sons, too?" he added, nodding at Ned and Frank, suspiciously.
"Only New York boys spending a vacation in the mountains," Ned said, answering the question. "Mrs. Brady came to our camp tonight looking for her son and we came home with her. We are looking for good pictures," he added.
The stranger pointed to the old lady, sitting with the sleeping child on her breast.
"There is one," he said.
"Yes, and I"m sorry I haven"t my camera with me."
"Are you thinking of remaining in this section long?" the visitor asked.
"We can"t say," laughed Ned. "We may move on to-morrow, and may stay here a week."
The man"s suspicions seemed to have vanished. He talked frankly with the boys, and occasionally addressed a word to the old lady. He gave her, briefly, a good report of her son"s progress in Washington, and handed her a roll of bank-notes.
"He is coming here himself soon," he said, "and he will bring more.
He is doing very nicely there."
Ned was wishing the boy would waken when the old lady arose from the bed and laid him gently down. He stirred uneasily in his sleep and she stood by his side, smoothing his dark hair away from his forehead.
"He favors my side of the family, being dark," she said. "The Stileses are all dark. If one of you boys will sit with him a moment," she added, with mountain hospitality, "I"ll get you all a snack. It was a long road over the mountains."
Ned accepted the invitation eagerly and sat down by the child. The face was dark and slender, the eyebrows turned up a trifle at the outer comers.
"Is it Mike III., or is it the prince?" he was asking himself when the boy awoke and sat up in bed with a jerk.
"What"s comin" off here?" he demanded, rubbing his sleepy eyes. "What kind of a b.u.m game is this? I want my daddy."
The visitor by the fire laughed.
"He"s up in city slum talk," he said. "And he"s learned something of French, too, knocking around with the boys in school."
"I can talk Franch like a native," a.s.serted the boy.
"And what else?" asked the man by the fire.
"Any old thing!" boasted the child. "They keep me at books all the time. I"m glad I"m with grandmother in the hills. Are you my grandmother?" he asked, pointing to the old woman, now bending over the fire.
"Yes, deary," was the reply. "I"m going to take care of you now."
"I"m glad!"
The boy tumbled back on the bed again and closed his eyes. Frank looked at Ned significantly.
"There"s no doubt about it!" his eyes said. "This child is Mike III."
The old lady made hot corn bread and brewed a pot of mountain tea.
The boys were not at all hungry, but managed to eat and drink moderately. Then Ned arose.
"We"ve got to be on our way," he said. "It will be morning before we get back to camp if we don"t start pretty soon!"
When the boys, after a cordial good night from Mrs. Brady and Buck, left the cabin the visitor followed them out. Ned stopped breathing, almost, as he took him by the arm.
"There"s one thing I want you to explain to the old lady after a time," the man said. "I suppose I might do it myself, but I prefer to let her know from personal observation something of the case first.
That boy is not exactly right."
"Not mentally sound, you mean?" asked Ned. "He appeared to be all right just now."
"Oh, he"s bright enough," answered the other, "but he"s been ill and has been in a hospital at Washington, and has been cuddled and humored so long that he likes to boss! Not good people to boss, the attendants in a hospital, you will say, but I guess they let this kid have his way. When he was delirious they told him all sorts of fairy tales about kings and princes, and he actually thinks some of them are true. If he breaks out in any of his tantrums before you leave, kindly tell the old lady what I am telling you, will you?"
Ned almost gasped! So the boy was likely to talk of kings and princes! He was likely to become masterful in his manners!
"I may have to change my mind," he thought. "This may be the prince, and not Mike III. But the boy"s English, and there"s his street slang! What about that? I reckon that we have a job on our hands!"
The two stood talking together in the moonlight for some moments, the stranger evidently resolved to make a good impression on the boys, while Frank walked on along the trail, looking back now and then to see if his chum was coming.
"This boy"s father," the man went on, "has permitted him to have his own way about everything. That was a mistake, of course, but he is trying to rectify it now by placing him under the care of his grandmother, who, if I mistake not, will see that he is properly disciplined."
"It has been a long time since the father left here," Ned suggested.
"Yes, along time."
"He is doing well in Washington?"
"Yes, he is connected with the State department."
Ned made a mental note of that!
"And is receiving a fair salary?" he asked.
"Oh, yes; he"s doing nicely, far better than his mother has any notion of."
Here was more food for thought. Why had the father delegated the pleasant duty of taking the boy back to the old mountain home to another if he had been situated so that he might have taken the journey himself?
"Is it the prince, or is it Mike III.?" he kept asking himself.
While they stood there together a great clattering came down the trail, and they saw Frank turn aside and stand at attention, as if waiting for some object, seen in the distance, to come up. Directly the sounds settled down to the rattling of stones and the steady pounding of hoofs.
"Look what"s here!" Frank shouted, pointing.