“We did try to shoot some, but we couldn’t hit anything,” chimed in Len Spencer.
The three starved youths were too weak to assist in gathering fuel for a campfire, so Jack and Harry let them sit still while the two of them bustled around with all speed.
Soon a big blaze of brush was soaring skyward, around which the half-frozen trio crouched. Three of the birds were cleaned and spitted, and it was not long before the smell of the broiling meat filled the air.
“Oh, but that smells good!” exclaimed Dixon, taking in a long whiff. “Don’t keep it over the fire too long, please!”
“Here you are,” returned Harry, passing the bird over whole. “Take my advice, and don’t down it too fast, or your stomach won’t stand it.”
Sully and Spencer were also supplied with a bird each, and it was a sight worth seeing to behold them tearing and chewing the meat like a starved dog does a long-sought bone.
While the trio ate, Jack and Harry said nothing. They broiled one of the hares, and of this took a small portion, passing the remainder over to the unfortunates. But the two young hunters kept up a big thinking.
How had their enemies been humbled! Here they were craving food in the most abject fashion known. Neither Jack nor Harry could find it in his heart to upbraid them for their former misdoings.
“This makes me feel like myself once more,” said Sully at length, after he had finished his bird, and was attacking a bit of the other meat. “If you fellows hadn’t come along we would have been corpses by night!”
“Where were you bound?” asked Jack.