Norman accompanied him to the brow of the hill and saw him scramble down the winding road to the ferry landing below. Here, also, he saw him wait nearly a half hour before the cumbersome gravity flatboat put out from the other shore, and then he devoted himself to picking and eating Saskatoon berries, with which the hills were covered.
It was two o’clock when Roy returned, burdened with packages. For an hour Norman had been asleep in the invigorating hill air. Roy had certainly gone the limit in the matter of meat. He had two roasts and six thick steaks and, what was more to his own taste, he proudly displayed a leg of lamb. His mail, of which there seemed to be a great deal for everyone, he had tied in one end of a flour sack. In the other end he had six loaves of fresh bread. On his back in another bag he had a weight of magazines.
“I thought we’d take what we could,” he began, “and I guess it’s a good thing we came when we did. Somebody’s been pounding telegrams in here for several days for Colonel Howell. I got a half dozen of ’em and I sent all he gave me. I got off some messages to the folks, too, but I wonder what the colonel’s so busy about.”
“This ain’t the only iron he has in the fire,” answered Norman drowsily. “But where’s our own eats?”
Roy dumped his bags and bundles on the grass and then began to explore his own capacious pockets. From one he took a can of salmon and from another a box of sardines.
“And here’s the lemon for ’em,” he explained, producing it from his shirt pocket. “Help yourself to the bread.”
“Is that all?” complained Norman. “I’ll bet a nickel you had dinner at the Alberta!”
“All but this,” went on Roy, and he began unbuttoning the front of his flannel shirt. “It feels kind of soft.”
While Norman watched him, he extracted a greasy bag, flat and crumpled, and tore it open to expose what was left of an originally fine hot raisin pie.
His companion turned up his nose in disgust.