We did not raise any objections to this arrangement, but hurried off at once to attend to the duties our leader had assigned us.
In half an hour more, the horses had been rubbed dry, and their legs relieved of the mud and ice that adhered to them; a supply of wood sufficient to keep the fire burning all night was piled in one corner of the shanty, and we lay stretched out on the leaves, enveloped in a cloud of steam which arose from our wet clothing, watching with hungry eyes the movements of our cook.
We were all in the best of spirits now, even including Luke Redman, who seemed for the moment to forget that his hands were bound behind his back, and that he stood a splendid chance of passing a portion of his life within the walls of a penitentiary.
“Now, then,” exclaimed Mark, “supper’s ready. I can’t say that it will go very far toward satisfying our appetites,” he continued, glancing at the six pieces of beech bark on which he had placed each one’s share of the squirrels; “but it’s better than nothing. Who is going to feed our friend here?”
“Untie my hands, and I’ll feed myself,” the prisoner replied. “I won’t trouble none on you.”
“Now, I’ll tell you what’s the matter,” said Sandy; “’tain’t the least trouble in the world. If we should untie your hands, you might jump up an’ run out in the rain, an’ get wet ag’in; an’ that would be redikilis. I’ll tend to him, fellers.”
Sandy seated himself beside the prisoner, and our cook, having passed around the pieces of bark, we fell to work in earnest.
In a very few minutes the last bone had been picked clean, and we sat looking wistfully at our empty “plates,” as if half expecting to see them filled up again in some mysterious manner; but as nothing of the kind happened, we threw them into the fire, and once more stretching ourselves out on the leaves, listened in a dreamy sort of way to the rain and sleet pattering on the roof.
“Don’t go to sleep yet, boys,” said Duke, seeing that some of us began to blink and nod at the fire, as if recognizing in it an old acquaintance. “I have something to say to you.”
As he said this, he crawled into the furthest corner of the shanty, and we followed and gathered about him.
I believed that what he was about to say had some reference to Luke Redman, and the latter must have thought so, too, for he watched us with a great deal of interest.