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Had any one from the more civilized world seen us idly lolling about on the logs or ground in our travelling costumes, the Indians leaning against the uprights, the baby as happy as a queen on an outspread buffalo robe, the tin plates and mugs, knives, forks, and kettles, to say nothing of the whisky-keg, and general debris of a finished feast, and at the same time heard the steady, drenching rain descending round us, he might have wondered at the laughter, fun, and chaff in which we all indulged.
As we filled our plates and squatted under the canvas that sheltered the cook's Dutch-oven layout, a man under the hind end of the chuck-wagon propped himself on elbow and shouted greeting to us. In the semi-dark I couldn't see his face, but I recognized the voice. It was our friend of the whisky-keg episode, Piegan Smith. "Say, Flood, yuh ain't been t' Benton an' back already, have yuh?"
I hadn't dozed very long when somebody scattered my drowsiness with an angry yelp, and I raised up on one elbow to see what was the trouble. Most of the hunters were bunched on one side of the fire, and they were looking pretty sour at a thin, trim-looking Mounted Policeman who was standing with his back to me, holding the whisky-keg up to his nose.
"'Twenty odd years ago, said the old pilot, as he lighted his pipe and seated himself on the head of a whisky-keg, 'there warn't a great many people along the Ohio, except Ingins and bears, and we didn't like to cultivate a very close acquaintance with either of them, for the Ingins were cheatin', deceivin', and scalpin' critters, and the bears had an onpleasant way with 'em, that people of delicate narves didn't like.
M was some distance in front, with the frying-pan in one hand, and a basket containing the knives, forks, etc., in the other, while my load was the lantern, whisky-keg, and a small tin pail of pork. Just as I reached the rock, Mr.
Next morning when I awoke, although it was still early, I found Jake already dressed. Not only that, but he was at the whisky-keg in the corner, filling up a cup. "My God! Jake, you don't mean to tell me you are back to that stuff?" "Yep! I ain't preachin' tee-total any more after this." My heart sank within me. This, after all his fighting. I remonstrated with him all I could. "But, man alive!"
These capricious changes were perhaps owing in a great measure to the presence of the whisky-keg, which the old warrior ever and anon took from its perch among the packs behind him, and applied to his lips, sorely, as it appeared, against the will of his companion, who seemed to remonstrate with him against a practice so unbecoming a warrior, while in the heart of a foeman's country, and not a little also against his own sense of propriety: for his whole course in relation to the keg was like that of a fish that dallies around the angler's worm, uncertain whether to bite, now looking and longing, now suspecting the hook and retreating, now returning to look and long again, until, finally, unable to resist the temptation, it resolves upon a little nibble, which ends, even against its own will, in a furious bite.
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