“I wonder if you ever will get enough to eat, John!” said Rob, reprovingly. “We have only had breakfast an hour or so. But I’m agreed that young wild goose will make a good change of diet for luncheon.”
He patted Skookie on the shoulder to compliment him on his skill.
“Plenty times me catch-um,” said Skookie, proudly, as he untangled his cords. “Plenty times my peoples come dis place.”
Whether he meant that his people had been hunting here very often, or intended to hunt here often, they could not understand. Happier than they had been for some days, they went back to the hut, picked the old goose, skinned out the breast of the young one, and began, somewhat unskilfully, to prepare for the cookery of their new game. The best they could do was to cut the breast of the fowl into strips and fry it with some of the bear fat in the broken skillet. Even so, they found it delicious eating.
Skookie, after the fashion of his people, sat on the ground cross-legged, and when it came his turn to help himself from the common dish he plunged his fingers into the hot contents, and fishing out a long piece introduced it into his mouth. When his mouth was full as it would hold he took his knife-blade, and after his fashion cut off a piece close to his lips, on the outside—the way in which most of these Northwestern natives eat their meat. The other boys, who had been reared with different ideas of table manners, looked at him with surprise. Skookie did not seem to notice, but munched away contentedly, repeating the performance now and then.
“If that’s the way they eat up here,” said John, at last, “I suppose we ought to learn how to do it.” So saying, soberly he began to sharpen his knife on a near-by stone, as he had seen Skookie do, and, taking a piece of goose breast in one hand, he partly filled his mouth and undertook to cut it off at the proper length. At once he uttered a wild cry, and dropped both knife and morsel to the ground. Blood flowed from his face, and he clapped his hand to the end of his nose, which he had nearly severed with the stroke of his knife, as it had slipped unexpectedly through the piece of meat.
“Now look at you!” said Jesse. “You’ve pretty near cut off your nose; that’s what you’ve done. That comes of forgetting the way you were brought up. Come here—let me see how badly you’re hurt.”
Skookie broke out into wild peals of laughter at this mishap, which left John none too well pleased. Rob and Jesse, however, bent over him as he whimpered with the pain, and did what they could to make amends for the disaster.
“Hot water is best for a cut,” said Rob, taking their tea-vessel from the fire and looking about for a piece of rag. Thus, in short, by the free use of hot water, he did at length stop the flow of blood in part, at least.