“He’s had a tough pull, that’s certain, Jinny,” he said, giving the burro an encouraging pat.
Could Jinny have spoken she might have said that she was herself having a hard pull. She had often carried Gard, on the plain, but this dead weight, on an up-grade, was a brand-new surprise for her. She wagged her solemn little head sorrowfully as she plodded on, and not even the oat cake that Gard reached forth to her seemed to impart any charm to life as she then saw it.
They reached the glade at last, and Gard got the stranger upon his own bed, covering him with the great bear-skin robe. He brought him nearly all that was left of the deputy’s whiskey, cherished carefully all these months, and set to preparing a meal.
He kicked aside the smoldering ashes of a nearly burned out fire on the hard earth, and with a few thrusts of a broad, flat stick, disclosed the earthen jar of mesquite beans that he had left to cook in his absence. Simmering with the beans were the marrowbone of a deer and the carcass of a rabbit caught that morning. The savory whiffs from the steaming mess made the exhausted man on the bed turn his face to the fire.
“How in all git out,” he began, feebly, and stared in amazement; for Gard had flanked the bean-pot with another, taken from the fire he had quickly kindled by transferring the still smoldering sticks from the bake-fire to the fireplace. The visitor sniffed at this second pot, incredulously.
“Where ’d you git coffee?” he demanded.
“Sweet acorns,” Gard explained, briefly. He was tasting the full joy of hospitality as he brought wild honey, and more oat cakes, from the shack.
The stranger reached eager hands toward the acorn coffee.
“Gimme some—hot!” he pleaded.
Gard filled a crooked earthen bowl with it and brought it to him, steaming. He drained it, almost savagely, handing the bowl back with a sigh of satisfaction that left nothing for words to express.