"Well, you see, you people from down the mounting draw these things a good deal finer than us folks up here in the mountings kin. I'm a member of the church an' I tries to behave accordin'. You never heard me swear an' you never will. You've done me the greatest favor any body ever done me, an' like an honest man I want to repay it a little, but you won't let me."
Tom saw that there was no use in trying to enlighten the mountaineer's perverted ethical sense and so he gave up the effort and simply said:
"Will you let me have the meal and let me pay for it, or will you not?"
"In course I will," said the mountaineer. "How many bags is you got?"
"Only this one," said Tom. "I couldn't carry more than that. It will hold a hundred pounds of meal."
"Yes, but I kin carry some," said the man, "and I'm a goin' to. I tell you you done me the biggest turn any body ever done me, when you put me on pay-roll, an' I'm bound to get even with you ef I kin. So I'm a goin' to fill your bag an' one that I've got down there of my own, an' I'm a goin' to tote one of 'em while you tote the other. I know easier paths than you do about these mountings an' I'm a goin' to show 'em to you. In some places we kin slide the meal bags down a incline fer a quarter of a mile at a time, jest on the ice, without no totin' at all. So we'll git two big bags o' meal to your camp betwixt this an' mornin'."
"But why not wait for daylight?" asked Tom.
"'Cause then the fellers would lynch me fer carryin' food to the enemy. You see it won't do fer me even to go into yer camp. I'll tote my bag to the top o' that bluff like, that rises this side o' the camp. Then I'll git out quick an' afterwards you kin slip the bag over the bluff like an' I'll git into no trouble."
With that the mountaineer took Tom's bag and disappeared over a sort of cliff. Ten minutes later he returned with the bag full of a rude meal, made by grinding corn in a big coffee mill of the kind that grocers use.
"Now you jest stay here fer ten minutes or so an' I'll be back with the other sack. It's a good deal bigger'n this 'un, but I kin tote a good deal more'n you kin, an' you'll need all the meal you kin git."