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Updated: June 13, 2025
When the sergeant returned to the cooking-fire, he gave him a glance which was at once watchful and deprecatory, made place for him to sit down on a junk of adobe, and offered him a corn-shuck cigarito. Meyer took it, saying, "Thank you, Schmidt," and the two smoked in apparently amicable silence.
At night, when the cooking-fire was lighted on the deck, and the driving sparks that flew among the rigging, and the clouds of sails, seemed to menace the ship with certain annihilation by fire, in case the elements of air and water failed to compass her destruction; there, again, was Mr Tapley, with his coat off and his shirt-sleeves turned up to his elbows, doing all kinds of culinary offices; compounding the strangest dishes; recognized by every one as an established authority; and helping all parties to achieve something which, left to themselves, they never could have done, and never would have dreamed of.
They were now come near to the back part of the house. One of the men was engaged about the cooking-fire, which burned with the clear, fierce, essential radiance of cocoa-nut shells. A fragrance of strange meats was in the air. All round in the verandahs lamps were lighted, so that the place shone abroad in the dusk of the trees with many complicated patterns of shadow.
Then they struck out to the right, taking advantage of a cloud which dimmed the face of the moon for a time, for they wished to reach the kloof without being seen from the waggon. Nor, indeed, were they seen, for the driver and voorlooper were seated by the cooking-fire on its further side, smoking, and dozing as they smoked.
About the cooking-fire amidst of the houses, and here and there otherwhere, they saw, standing or going to and fro, huge figures of men and women, with children playing about betwixt them. They stood and gazed down at it for a minute or two, and though all were at peace there, yet to Walter, at least, it seemed strange and awful.
Family parties bivouacked in those bottle-shaped trenches where each fighting unit had his separate box of provisions sunk in the earth beside him, and his cooking-fire of chips and dry dung, and ate and slept and smoked and shot as he thought good.
As I entered the circle about the cooking-fire of drift-wood by the lake, Iglesias said, "The beef-steak and the mutton-chops will do for breakfast; now, then, with your bear!" "Haw, haw!" guffawed Cancut; and the sound, taking the lake at a stride, found echoes everywhere, till he grew silent and peered suspiciously into the dark.
The smoke of the cooking-fire hung in heavy blue wreaths about the tent, and a thick rain beat into the faces of the men. The few weeks they had spent in the wilderness had made a change in them. Grenfell had clearer eyes and skin, and was steadier on his legs, for he had slaked his thirst with river-water for some time now.
But he was less displeased, being half French, than if he had been pure-bred American. The old man, squatting by his cooking-fire, gave him a civil nod, and he responded with a flourish of his quirt. The reek of sage smoke, the smell of dust and cattle rose rank on the cooling air. To-night, however, he must talk on an empty stomach, for his chuck wagon was not in sight.
The stone had been pushed away; it lay inside the cave. Ominously the black entrance seemed staring at him in the dull gleam of the firelight. On hands and knees he fell, and hastily crawled through. As he went, he flashed his lamp here, there, everywhere. "Beatrice! Beatrice!" No answer. In the far corner still flickered some remainder of the cooking-fire.
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