“I didn’t hurt them,” I replied. “They never knew what struck them. I didn’t like to do it, but we must find our own food, or surrender to Brack.”
She looked at the birds wistfully and said nothing as I led her to the spring. I left her splashing the ice-cold water upon her face and proceeded to dress the birds. When I returned to the cave she was waiting with her sleeves rolled up and a set look in her eyes.
“I can cook them,” she said firmly. “That’s my share of the game. You cut them in two and put a stick through the pieces and hold them before a hot fire that doesn’t smoke.”
“Any fire that we have must not smoke,” I said. “The smoke would show above the trees and be seen.”
“Then we must have perfectly dry wood,” she said quickly. “A small fire and dry; that doesn’t smoke.”
We set about gathering the wood together. Between two stones at the cave’s opening we built our fire, watching it jealously, to see that only the minimum of smoke arose from it in the clear air. Betty put her conscience to rest as she regarded the dressed grouse, composed mainly of succulent breast.
“They must be intended for food,” she said, “or they wouldn’t be made as they are.”
I agreed with her emphatically, and with a skewered half bird in each hand we sat down before the fire and proceeded with our cookery.
Freshly killed spruce grouse, roasted before an uncertain fire, and without salt, do not make ideal breakfast food, a fact which we discovered soon after the birds were done.
“I believe,” said Betty, when she had nibbled at half a bird, “I have had enough.”