Jones came into the tent and sat down on a cracker box near the door.
"How do you like Idaho?" he asked.
"I'd like it better if I'd learned to make pies before I came," Harry replied, with a rueful glance at her sticky hands. "Rob has told me how well all the men out in this country can cook. It makes me feel so stupid not to be able to. Rob has tried to show me how to make sour-dough bread and stew frijole beans—with red peppers and garlic, you know. Aren't they awful? Rob likes them, though."
"They ain't so bad," said Jones gravely, turning his hat in his hands and glancing oddly at the girl from under his eyebrows.
"Well, maybe not, when you're very, very hungry. I can manage to cook them, but pie—look at it!" She viciously prodded the glistening, sticky paste. "I guess I'll just throw it away and start fresh."
"Oh, I wouldn't waste it! Ain't you got it a little wet, mebbe?"
"Is that it? What must I do? I'm sure you are laughing in your sleeve at me."
"Not much. I remember what an all-fired mess I had layin' round when I first waded into pie makin'. But now if I was you and you told me to turn that there into hot bread and take a new layout for the pie, I reckon I'd try it."
"Thank you!" Harry laughed. "If I were you, Mr. Jones, and you were I, and I saw you in this fix, do you know what I'd do? Offer to show me—you—how to do it."
With a smile, Jones laid his hat under the table, dipped some water into the hand basin, washed his hands, and came over to the table.