“Yes, right, ain’t you, ’bout the food, an’ wrong in everythin’ else. Ef you say ’ain’t’ to me ag’in, Tom Ross, inside o’ a week, I’ll club you so hard over the head with your own gun that you won’t be able to speak another word fur a year! The idee o’ you laughin’ an’ me plum’ dead with hunger! Why, I could eat a hull big buffler by myself, an’ ef he wuzn’t cooked I could eat him alive, an’ on the hoof too, so I could!”
Tom Ross continued to laugh silently with his eyes and lips.
“What are we to do?” asked Paul in dismay. “If we were to find game we wouldn’t dare fire at it with the Indians perhaps so near.”
“And if we can’t fire at it we certainly can’t catch it with our hands.”
“True,” said Tom Ross.
“And then are we to starve to death?”
“No,” said Tom Ross.
Paul did not ask anything more, but his questioning look was on the silent man.
“Fish,” said Tom Ross, showing his line and hook.