The colonel’s prediction was true and the three young men had a dip in the shallow water off the island that was certainly bracing. When they returned to the shore they found both cooks in full operation a few hundred yards from the scows and on the open riverbanks.
The difference in the output of the cooks was considerable, but satisfactory to each party served. The colonel’s party was making the best of fresh eggs, fresh butter and new bread and a beefsteak, which would be their only fresh meat for many days. The crew, out of a common pan, helped themselves to boiled potatoes and fried pork, to which each man appeared to add bannock from his own home supplies. The Indians drank tea.
“Gentlemen,” remarked Colonel Howell, as he lifted a tin of steaming coffee, “here’s to a friend of civilization—delicious coffee. We will know him but a few days longer. He will then give way to the copper kettle and tea.”
“How about fresh eggs and beefsteak?” laughed Paul.
“Eggs, my dear sir, have always been a superfluous luxury patronized mostly by the infirm and aged. As for beefsteak, it cannot compare with a luscious cut of moosemeat, the epicurean delight of the Northwest. It is a thing you may not have at the Waldorf, and a delicacy that not even the gold of the gourmet may lure from the land of its origin.”
“How about bear meat?” asked Roy, recalling with some concern his lost opportunity in the early dawn.
“Rather than starve, I would eat it,” responded Colonel Howell, “and gladly. But to it I prefer rancid salt pork.”
In such badinage, the leisurely stop passed while the boys finished their first meal in the wilderness, topping it off with the luscious red raspberries that were just in perfection all around the camp.
That day the boats drifted fifty miles, luncheon being eaten on the rear deck. A night landing was made on a gravelly island to escape as far as possible the many mosquitoes. Tents were not erected but alongside a good fire the blankets were spread on the soft grass beneath the stunted island trees and with mosquito nets wrapped about their heads all slept comfortably enough.
Where the Indians slept no one seemed to know. When the boys and their patron turned in as dark came on, at eleven o’clock, the half-breeds were still eating and smoking about their removed camp fire. In this manner, with no accidents, but with daily diversions in the way of shooting, venison now being one of the daily items of food, the voyageurs at last reached the Grand Rapids.