"Not by a long shot it ain't, Mr.—Mr Jack," said Jim, contradicting her flatly. "She's got a first-class supper; an' by George! she can make more out o' nothin' than any woman I ever seen." In his enthusiasm over Rachel he was unconscious of the slur on their host's larder. "I never knowed she was such a rattlin' cook!"
"I know I have never been given credit for my everyday, wearing qualities," said the girl, without looking up from the eggs she was scrambling in the bake-oven of a few minutes before. The words may have been to Jim, but by the man's eyes he evidently thought they were at Genesee—such a curious, pained look as that with which he watched her every movement, every curve of form and feature, that shone in the light of the fire. Once she saw the look, and her own eyes dropped under it for a moment, but that independence of hers would not let it be for long.
"Do you want a share of our supper?" she asked, looking up at him quizzically.
"Yes," he answered, but his steady, curious gaze at her showed that his thoughts were not of the question or answer.
Not so Jim. That young gentleman eyed dubiously first the lay-out and then Genesee's physique, trying to arrive at a mental estimate of his capacity and the probable division of the pone and potatoes.
"How about that saddle, now, Jim?" asked the girl. Whereupon Jim began a pantomime enjoining silence, back of the chair of the man, who appeared more like a guest than host—perhaps because it was so hard to realize that it was really his hearth where that girl sat as if at home. She noticed his preoccupation, and remarked dryly:
"You really don't deserve a share of our cooking after the way you deserted us before!—not even a klahowya when you took the trail."
"You're right, I reckon; but don't you be the one to blame me for that," he answered, in a tone that made the command a sort of plea; and Miss Hardy industriously gave her attention to the supper.
"It's all ready," announced Jim, as he juggled a pan of hot pone from one hand to another on the way to the table. "Ouch! but it's hot! Say, wouldn't some fresh butter go great with this!"
"Didn't you find any?" asked Genesee, waking to the practical things of life at Jim's remark.