"Wait a minute," said Tom. "How much am I to pay for this meal? I have only two dollars with me and perhaps it will not be enough."
"Well, you see, Tom, I done tole you you needn't pay nothin' fer it, but you wouldn't have it that way on no account. So I reckon I'll charge you the same price I pay when I buy that sort o' meal from the still. That's a dollar fer them two bags."
"That's very cheap," said Tom. "Are you sure it's a proper price?"
"Sartin' sure," answered the man. "You see it's a mighty poor sort o' meal—jest soft mounting corn ground up like in a coffee mill to make whiskey out'n. You'll have to wet it up mouty soft like to make it stick together fer bread, an' I'll tell you a trick about that. You jest wet it up with boilin' hot water. That sort o' cooks it like. Make it very wet an' don't mind even ef a little o' the water stan's on top o' the dough in the pan. That'll cook away an' your bread'll be all the better fer it. But a dollar is a high price fer it."
By the time the second bag of meal came it was high time for the pair to start if they were to reach Camp Venture before daylight. But the mountaineer knew all the short cuts, and better still, all the easy cuts—paths that gave a minimum of up-hill work while presenting other advantages of importance. At one point, for example, he led Tom to a spot where there was a steep shelving rock, completely coated with hard ice.
"Now," he said, "You an' me couldn't go down that slide without breakin' every bone we've got. But we kin slip our meal bags down it 'thout no hurt to nobody. Then I'll show you a way round it, so's we kin git the meal agin."
With that he placed his meal bag in position, gave it a little push, and instantly it disappeared down the hill in the darkness. Tom did the same with his bag, and then, striding off to the right, the mountaineer led the way by a difficult but practicable path around the rock to a point quite a quarter of a mile below, where the two found their bags of meal safely reposing in a snow bank.
This was repeated at several points on the journey, while at other points where the bags could not be thus slidden down, because of an insufficient incline, it was easy for the two to drag them as they walked and this they did. As the way was almost entirely down hill, there was very little of what the mountaineer called "toting" to be done.
About three o'clock in the morning the two reached the brow of that cliff under which the boys had made their first temporary encampment, and which constituted the mountainside limit of Camp Venture. There they parted, the mountaineer protesting his eager desire to hurry back and "look arter the little gal."
"Wait a minute," said Tom. "I've paid you for this meal, but I haven't paid you for carrying it down the mountain or for the risk you've taken in doing that."