"I did hear you shooting, but I thought you had come across some more hartebeest."
"How the devil do you suppose I could see to shoot in this pitch darkness?"
"I don't know; I wondered."
"Oh, so you wondered, did you?"
"Well, what did you want me to do?"
"Sing, or any damn thing. But how could an ex-ink-slinger be expected to have any horse-sense to do anything requiring a glimmer of intelligence? Oh, don't talk; of course, it's not your fault, it's your Maker's."
Black felt keenly the coarse injustice of this attack and sat silently looking into the fire. The truth of the matter was that Fernie had lost his way. He couldn't find the dead hartebeest. He cursed the waggon boy for a fool, which he wasn't; and beat him, which he didn't deserve.
"Off-load those chunks of meat near the fire and get to hell out of this," said Fernie roughly to the waggon boy. The fellow relieved the donkeys of their load and slouched away.
Black looked up. "You're tired, Fernie. Won't you have some supper?"
Fernie, who was making a pile of the hartebeest meat, turned with an angry jerk towards the speaker. Something in Black's attitude brought him sharply to his senses and saved him from adding fresh insult to those already thrown at his friend.