“Why not swing the steak?” asked Cecil.
“What do you mean, ‘swing a steak’?” asked Bill. “Is that a way to fix it so that it will keep?”
“No, that’s a way to cook it,” said Cecil. “It always seems to taste better after being cooked that way. I don’t know whether it is imagination or whether the fragrance of the burning wood really does permeate into the meat. Have you a griddle? If you have, we will try it.”
“I’ll get the griddle,” said Bill.
Cecil took the griddle and suspended it by three wires so that it hung in a horizontal position. He then attached the wires to a tripod made from some saplings. By the time that he had finished, the trout had been fried and were placed along side the fire to keep warm. Cecil took the tripod and placed it over the fire. The steak was placed in the griddle and gently swung back and forth just above the tops of the flames.
“Get a stick, Bruce,” said Cecil. “You can swing this while I do something else. As soon as the bottom starts to get brown, turn the steak. That will keep the juice in the meat. It begins to look as if we are going to have a real meal. I am sorry that some of my Oregon friends did not happen along with a venison mince pie. If we had one of them, we would be sitting on the top of the world.”
“It is nothing more than mince pie made out of venison instead of regular meat,” he continued when he saw the surprised expression written on the faces of the young aviators. “These Oregon people make them during the Fall and Winter. If you ever get a chance, be sure and taste one.”
In the meantime, Cecil was busy arranging the plates, knives, forks and spoons on an improvised table on the top of an old tree trunk. Smaller logs were brought up for chairs. So it was that Bill and Bob ate their first meal in the woods. Trout, baked potatoes, bread, butter, jam, coffee and, best of all, the steak. It was as Cecil had said, “Better than when cooked in the ordinary manner.” It seemed to have absorbed some of the pungent aroma of the burning wood.
Overhead the sun was masked by a roof formed by the thickly matted trees. The smell of the timber land permeated the air, a smell which one can only find in the forest. It seemed as if they were in the wilderness, where they were the pioneers blazing the trail for others to follow. To Cecil it may have been an old story, but to Bill and Bob it was the thrill that only comes with a new and enjoyable experience.
“It seems a shame that civilized people should be responsible for the destruction of such a place as this,” said Bill after a while. “It’s all so beautiful, so entirely different from what we are accustomed to. I’ll bet that the Indians never burned the forests intentionally.”