But in spite of the vigor that resentment lent him, he was glad when the guide tossed off his pack beside a brook that trickled under mossy rocks on the hard-wood slope. It was good to hear the tinkle of water, to feel the solid ground after the weird wobbling of the sphagnum moss, and to snuff the smoke of the handful of fire crackling under the tea-pail.
They were munching biscuits and bacon, nursing pannikins of tea between their knees, when Christopher cocked an ear, darted a glance, and mumbled a mild oath as savor to his mouthful of biscuit.
“Set to eat a snack within a mile of Misery Gore and one of them crows will appear to ye. And that’s the old he one of them all.”
The old man who came shuffling slowly down the path was gaunt with the leanness of want, and unkempt with the squalor of the hopelessly pauperized.
“It’s one of the Misery Gore squatters, Mr. Wade. All Skeets and Bushees, and married back and forth and crossways and upside down till ev’ry man is his own grandmother, if he only knew enough to figger relationship. All State paupers, and no more sprawl to ’em than there is to a fresh-water clam.”
Old Christopher, with Yankee contempt of the thrifty for the willing pauper, grumbled on in his scornful explanations after the old man sat down opposite them. Wade, accustomed to politer usages, winced before this brutal frankness. He plainly felt worse than the subject, who looked from one to the other, his blue lips slavering at sight of the food.
“It ain’t no use to set there and drool like a hound pup, Jed,” snapped old Christopher, cutting another slice of bacon. “We’re bound in for a fortnit’s explorin’ trip, and we ain’t got no grub to spare.”
The patriarch of Misery Gore drew a greasy bit of brown paper from his ragged vest, unfolded it, and took out what was apparently a long hair from his grizzly beard. He pinched the thicker end between his dirty thumb and forefinger, stroked the whisker upright, and held it before his gaping mouth. The whisker slowly bent over towards Christopher.
“’Lectric!” announced the experimenter, in thick, stuffy tones, as though he were talking through a cloth.
Again he gaped his toothless mouth, and the whisker bent towards the uninviting opening.