We need not waste time in going into the details of the feast that followed: how the goose was delightfully plump and tender—especially tender to teeth that would have scarcely observed the difference if it had been tough—how, in addition to the goose, they had wild-ducks enough—shot earlier in the day—to afford each one a duck to himself, leaving a brace over, of which Okématan ate one, as well as his share of the goose, and seemed to wish that he might eat the other, but he didn’t, for he restrained himself; how they drank tea with as much gusto and intemperance as if it had been a modern “afternoon”; and how, after all was over, the Red-man filled the pipe-head on the back of his iron tomahawk and began to smoke with the air of a man who meant business and regarded all that had gone before as mere child’s-play.
The afternoon was well advanced when the feast was concluded, for appetites in the wilderness are not easily or soon satisfied.
“I feel tight,” said Billie with a sigh and something of pathos in his tone, when he at last laid down his knife—we cannot add fork, for they scorned such implements at that time.
“That’s right, Little Bill,” said Archie, “try another leg or wing—now, don’t shake your head. We’ve come on this trip a-purpose to make you fat an’ strong. So you must—here, try this drum-stick. It’s only a little one, like yourself, Billie.”
“True, Archie, but I’m too little to hold it. I feel like an egg now.”
“Hallo! Oké, are you overcome already?” asked Archie.
“The sun sinks to rest at night and the birds go to sleep. If we intend to hunt we must begin now.”
“It’s always the way,” returned the boy with an air of discontent; “whenever a fellow gets into a state of extreme jollity there’s sure to be something bothersome to come and interrupt us. Obfusticate your faculties with some more smoke, Oké, till Billie and I finish our tea. We can’t shoot with half-empty stomachs, you know.”
“They must be three-quarters full by this time—whatever,” remarked Fergus, wiping his clasp-knife on the grass.
Just then, Dan Davidson, who had gone to explore the islet, returned with the information that some hunters must have recently visited the same place, for he had discovered the remains of an encampment at the extreme eastern side, which looked as if it had been recently occupied, for bones of wild-fowl were scattered about, the meat on which was neither dried nor decayed.