“That’s our difficulty. We couldn’t carry much grub behind the saddles, and I hadn’t time to make a sensible selection. There isn’t much, as you’ve noticed. There’s quite a little bacon, but pitifully little to go with it. There’s a whole pound of coffee, and—and a few crackers, all chonked up from rubbing against a saddle—part of a loaf of bread; part of a can of milk; some salt. And I guess we ate about everything else for breakfast. You ate a terrible lot of bread, Tom.”
“I was hungry as a bear.”
“So was I,” she admitted. “We have plenty of matches.” She brightened. “Well, we’ll not borrow trouble,” she added after a pause. “If the wind goes down and we dare sneak out, we can probably pot a jack with the .25-.35. To get a buck, of course, would take a lot of hunting, unless we were exceptionally fortunate. We couldn’t risk that. There are gray squirrels down in the pines, too; but if a fellow’s hungry, one doesn’t seem overly large. We’ll see what we can do this evening, though. That’s the time to get a chaparral chicken, otherwise known as a burro’s cousin, or a jackass rabbit.”
Young love knows not the drag of time. There is so much to be told, so much to be planned, so many assurances and reassurances of undying devotion to be made, that the sun’s course from rim to rim is all too speedily accomplished, and the light of the stars and the smile of the moon must be requisitioned to render one day long enough.
Almost before they knew it dusk was at hand; then they remembered that now they were to make an attempt to replenish the larder. Then, too, they realized that the wind was abating.
Soon it blew only in occasional fierce gusts. The tired trees ceased their groaning and tossing. With sighs of relief the chaparral grew still. From a fastness came the cool, sweet call of a mountain quail.
The two slipped once more from the chaparral and cautiously worked their way down toward the desert. Just before dark they saw a big-eared jack rabbit nibbling at dry grass behind a bunch of squawtooth. Falcon the Flunky flattened himself, took slow, careful aim with the .25-.35, and pressed the trigger.
The larder had been replenished.
“You can shoot,” praised the girl as she picked up the all but beheaded jack rabbit. “I like to see ’em killed like that—instantly. I can’t stand it to see anything suffer. I was afraid you’d not have the nerve to aim at his head.”
With their prize they hurried back to concealment. Falcon the Flunky dressed the rabbit, and they hung it up for the night.