“How did you come to start it?”
There was a long silence, then the husky reply came. “I got a sickener last time—”
“Yes, I remember, at Waywing.”
“I got into the desert, and had hard times—awful for a while. I hadn’t enough to eat, and I didn’t know whether I’d die by hunger, or fever, or Indians—or snakes.”
“Oh, you were seeing snakes!” said Tim grimly.
“Not the kind you mean; I hadn’t anything to drink—”
“No, you never did drink, I remember—just was crooked, and slopped over women. Well, about the snakes?”
“I caught them to eat, and they were poison-snakes often. And I wasn’t quick at first to get them safe by the neck—they’re quick, too.”
Tim laughed inwardly. “Getting your food by the sweat of your brow—and a snake in it, same as Adam! Well, was it in the desert you got your taste for honey, too, same as John the Baptist—that was his name, if I recomember?” He looked at the tin of honey on the ground.
“Not in the desert, but when I got to the grass-country.”