“Say nothin’ more about it,” interrupted Avery. “Mebby I be a Cyclocks, but seein’ as I ain’t eddicated up to knowin’ it, it don’t bother me none. Howcome I ain’t speakin’ fur Swickey. She’s been goin’ to school.”
Avery’s shoulders straightened perceptibly.
As they walked toward the camp, Avery asked them if Swickey had told them of the catastrophe in the gorge. “Swickey never said much, but I reckon she sot some store by Joe. He would ’a’ crawled from here to Tramworth fur her—and he went down a’tween them hell-grindin’ logs like a feller goin’ to a dance. Wal, ’t ain’t the fust time I’ve seen ’em go.—You’re comin’ in to eat, ain’t you?” he asked, as David said something about borrowing some bacon and flour.
“Thanks, but we’ll have supper in my cabin to-night.”
“Can’t see no sense in thet. Swickey’s got ’most everything ready. You jest come in and feel to home.”
David glanced at Bascomb. “We’ll manage to-night, anyway.”
He caught the glance of quick approval in Swickey’s eyes, and after some joking about running two establishments to feed five people, he borrowed what he needed for supper and followed Bascomb to his own cabin, where they cooked and ate a meal that “escaped criticism merely because there wasn’t enough of it to criticize,” as Wallie remarked, with an omnivorous eye on the thirteenth and last biscuit.
CHAPTER XXVII—“I WANT DAVE”
The rear of the drive had passed, leaving in its wake the blackened circle of the wangan fire, a few empty tin cans, one or two broken pike-poles, an old pair of shoes with calks worn to blunt and useless stubs, discarded and gloomy socks, and a wrinkled and tattered oilskin; an agglomeration eloquent of the haste and waste of the drive, which was worming its tedious way through the deadwater of the thoroughfare some twelve miles below.
Walter Bascomb, thumbs in his belt, sauntered down to the river with David and stood idly looking at the pool below the dam. “I’ve just had breakfast, but that trout makes me hungry,” he said, pointing to a rippling circle that widened and smoothed out in the breadth of the brown water.