and--glory to goodness, I could sit here for ten minutes and string out
the names of the grimeses there are in the mountains; but say I'm
_awful_ hungry, and you'll excuse me if I get busy with this fine grub.
The other names will keep till next time, I reckon."

"Whew! it must feel funny to belong to such a big family," remarked
Steve, who did not happen to have any close relatives himself.

"Oh! shucks! none of 'em ever bother about _me_ any," said the boy, as
well as he could with his mouth stuffed of the ham and bread, which he
presently washed down with a copious draught of hot coffee. "They just
know that Obed he c'n take good care o' hisself."

Bandy-legs began to show a rising interest in the other. His suspicions
were beginning to give way under the genial ways of the said Obed. That
smile on the dusky face of the visitor in the camp had commenced to get
its work in. By degrees perhaps Bandy-legs might even come to like Obed
Grimes; though, truth to tell, he had always despised that last name,
for a boy answering to it had once treated Bandy-legs in a most
humiliating fashion, and this still rankled in his memory, although
years had fled since the occurrence.

"Do you mean from that, Obed," he went on to remark "that you're all
alone up here in the woods near old Mount Tom? Haven't you any of the
other Grimeses along with you?"

The boy shook his head in the negative, and grinned again. Max was
trying to study him, and he found the task one well worthy of his best
efforts. In the beginning he determined that Obed was no ordinary chap,
but possessed of sterling characteristics. He waited for the