With entire good humor she began to gather such pieces of dead wood as she could find for their fire.
"Your prisoner might as well make herself useful," she said.
Ben's face lighted as she had not seen it since their outward journey from Snowy Gulch. "Thank God you're taking it that way, Beatrice," he told her fervently. "It was a proposition I couldn't help—"
But the girl's eyes flashed, and her lips set in a hard line. "I'm doing it to make my own time go faster," she told him softly, rather slowly. "I want you to remember that."
But instantly both forgot their words to listen to a familiar clucking sound from a near-by shrub. Peering closely they made out the plump, genial form of Franklin's grouse,—a bird known far and wide in the north for her ample breast and her tender flesh.
"Good Lord, there's supper!" Ben whispered. "Beatrice, get your pistol—"
Her eyes smiled as she looked him in the face. "You remember—my pistol isn't loaded!"
"Excuse me. I forgot. Give it to me."
She handed him the little gun, and he slipped in the shells he had taken from it. Then—for the simple and sensible reason that he didn't want to take any chance on the loss of their dinner—he stole within twenty feet of the bird. Very carefully he drew down on the plump neck.
"Dinner all safe," he remarked rather gayly, as the grouse came tumbling through the branches.