“You are hungry?” asked Ben.
“Hungry?” repeated one of the visitors. “I never was so hungry in my life. To tell the truth, we never expected to see a camp-fire or a square meal again. Of all the blasted countries on the face of the earth, this mountain district of British Columbia takes the lead!”
“Where’s your camp?” asked Ben.
“I wish I knew,” answered one of the others. “We came in here a week ago for a month’s shooting and we’ve been trying to keep track of our camp ever since. It seems to me that it shifts about from point to point whenever we leave it!”
“Now, look here, Dick,” one of the other men interrupted, “Steve and I know what kind of a liar you are, but this stranger doesn’t. First thing you know, you’ll give him the impression that we’re all candidates for the foolish house. If you want to draw on your imagination, jest tell him how hungry you are.”
“I’m so hungry,” Dick answered, “that I could eat grass like the old king who was turned out to pasture a good many hundred years ago. I’ve been thinking for several hours of slicing down a couple of these peaks and making a grass sandwich. I should have done it, too, only I was afraid of finding a nest of rattlers in the grass.”
“Well,” Ben said with a chuckle at the fellow’s exaggeration, “if you want a fine bear steak, you can get one at the foot of the slope. A grizzly dropped down from the upper regions late this afternoon and we’ve been feeding off him ever since.”
“Is the meat good yet?” asked Dick.
“I think so,” replied Ben. “You can tell by bringing in a few slices and putting them over the coals to broil.”
“As a rule,” Dick went on, “I don’t eat meat of any kind, but to-night I think I could handle a couple of steaks cut off a horse.”