“Course I got a name, too, even if it ain’t quite so scrumptuous as yours.  But Obed Grimes suits me just as well, and it ain’t never kept me from eatin’ three square meals a day—­when I could get ’em,” he told them, soberly, though that odd little gleam in his eyes mystified Max somewhat.

“I suppose you live around this section, then, Obed?” he remarked, as he cleaned out the frying-pan that had contained the ham and eggs—­the latter having been carried all the way from the last small village they passed through, and which supply would doubtless be the last they might enjoy for a long time to come.

“Oh! yes, thar’s a plenty of Grimeses up this way,” the other replied, promptly.  “Fact is, the Grimeses are a big family, all told.  Thar’s Grandad Grimes to start with, and he’s going on ninety now; then there’s Uncle Hiram, Uncle Silas, Uncle Job, Uncle Sephus, Uncle Nicodemus, and a whole lot more; besides Aunt Rebecca, Aunt Sophia, Aunt Hetebel, 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 conversation to get further along, confident that the other had a surprise up his sleeve which he might condescend to share with them, after he had become fully satisfied they were to be trusted, and that he could look upon them in the light of friends.

“Nary a Grimes ‘cept me inside o’ twenty miles o’ here, and that’s a fact,” he assured Bandy-legs, after finishing his drinking.  “Fact is, most o’ the family don’t know jest where I’m at; and say, between us, I ain’t a carin’ about tellin’ ’em.”