“What’s the straight of it, you old hide-bound sinner?”
Dad changed hands on his chin, fingering his beard with scraping noise, eyes downcast as if a little ashamed.
“I guess it was me that took a snort too many out of the jug that day, John,” he confessed.
“Of course it was. And Rabbit tripped and fell into the tub trying to save you from it, did she?”
“Well, John, them fellers said that was about the straight of it.”
“You ought to be hung for running away from her, you old hard-shelled scoundrel!”
Dad took it in silence, and sat rubbing it into his beard like a liniment. After a while he rose, squinted his eye up at the sun with a quick turn of his head like a chicken.
“I reckon every man’s done something he ought to be hung for,” he said.
That ended it. Dad went off to begin supper, there being potatoes to cook. Sullivan had sent a sack of that unusual provender out to camp to help Mackenzie get his strength back in a hurry, he said.
Tim himself put in his appearance at camp a little later in the day, when the scent of lamb stew that Dad had in the kettle was streaming over the hills. Tim could not resist it, for it was seasoned with wild onions and herbs, and between the four of them they left the pot as clean as Jack Spratt’s platter, the dogs making a dessert on the bones.