As Jack cut down into the loaf, he naturally remembered those lines of a well-known writer:
“Who has not tasted home-made bread,
A heavy compound of putty and
lead!”
“Are these cakes?” he said, as Teddy presented another plate with something hot in it.
“Ay, pancakes they is, made of flour an’ wather fried in grease, an’ the best of aitin’, as ye’ll find;—but, musha! they’ve all stuck together from some raison I han’t yet diskivered: but they’ll be none the worse for that, and there’s plenty of good thick molasses to wash ’em down wid.”
“And this,” said Jack, pointing to a battered tin kettle, “is the—the—”
“That’s the coffee, sur.”
“Ah! well, sit down, Teddy, I have seen worse fare than this. Let’s be thankful for it. Now, then, let me hear about the fishery.”
Nothing pleased Teddy O’Donel so much as being allowed to talk. He sat down accordingly and entertained his master for the next hour with a full, true, and particular account of every thing connected with Fort Desolation. We will not, however, inflict this on the reader. Reduced to its narrowest limits, his information was to the following effect:—
That the Indians, generally, were well disposed towards the traders, though difficult to please. That a good many furs had been already obtained, and there was a report of more coming in. That the salmon fishery was situated on a river twenty miles below the fort, and was progressing favourably; but that the five men engaged there were a quarrelsome set and difficult to keep in order. Teddy thought, however, that it was all owing to one of the men, named Ladoc, a bully, who kept the other four in bad humour.
But the point on which poor Teddy dilated most was his solitude. For some time he had been living with no other companions than an old Indian woman and her half-caste daughter, and they having left him, during the last three days he had been living entirely alone “among the ghosts,” many of which he described minutely.