“I am to be robbed, I can see that plainly enough,” said Chase, his heart sinking within him. “I have been afraid of it all along, and it has come at last. I might as well give up now. But if I am to lose all my things, I’ll at least have a breakfast in part payment,” he added, after a moment’s reflection.
The men looked at Chase as he got up, but did not speak to him. He took down the haunch of venison, and while he was cutting off a portion of it, the hunter who was examining his bundle, coolly rolled up the blanket from which he had just arisen, and laid it down beside his saddle. Chase shivered as he watched the operation, and thought of the nights he had yet to pass in the mountains, but said nothing. He thrust some sticks through the slices of venison, and proceeded to roast them over the flames.
“Now, then,” said the hunter, who had done the most of the talking the night before, “whar’s them shiners?”
Chase, holding his breakfast with one hand, emptied his pocket with the other, giving up his hard-earned wages without a word of remonstrance.
“Be these all you’ve got?” asked the man.
“Every cent. If you don’t believe it, you can go through me.”
The man took him at his word, turning all his pockets inside out, passing his hand around his neck to make sure that he did not carry a purse suspended beneath his shirt, and even feeling of the seams of his trowsers and jacket. Having satisfied himself that the boy had told the truth, he ordered him to pull off his boots. Chase obeyed, shaking each one as he did so, to show that there was nothing in it.
“O, I know you hain’t got no more money,” said the man, impatiently. “Hand them boots here. They’re too big for you, an’ mebbe they’ll fit me.”
“Now you are not barbarian enough to turn me adrift in this wilderness at this time of the year barefooted, are you?” cried Chase, in great alarm.
“You cook that grub o’ your’n, an’ let it stop your mouth; that’s the best thing you can do,” was the reply.