“Man, what a chap you are for making unnecessary speeches! Couldn’t you tell me to look at the fire, without the preliminary piece of advice to compose myself! Besides, you talk nonsense, for I’m composed already, of blood, bones, flesh, sinews, fat, and—”
“Humbug!” interrupted the accountant. “Lend a hand to get supper, you young goose!”
“And so,” continued Harry, not noticing the interruption, “I cannot be expected, nor is it necessary, to compose myself over again. But to be serious,” he added, “it was very kind and considerate of you, Hammy, to put on the kettle, when your heels were in a manner uppermost.”
“Oh, it was nothing at all; my heels are much better, thank you, and it kept me from wearying.”
“Poor fellow!” said the accountant, while he busied himself in preparing their evening meal, “you must be quite ravenous by this time—at least I am, which is the same thing.”
Supper was soon ready. It consisted of a large kettle of tea, a lump of pemmican, a handful of broken biscuit, and three ptarmigan,—all of which were produced from the small wooden box which the accountant was wont to call his camp-larder. The ptarmigan had been shot two weeks before, and carefully laid up for future use; the intense frost being a sufficient guarantee for their preservation for many months, had that been desired.
It would have done you good, reader (supposing you to be possessed of sympathetic feelings), to have witnessed those three nor’-westers enjoying their supper in the snowy camp. The fire had been replenished with logs, till it roared and crackled again, as if it were endued with a vicious spirit, and wished to set the very snow in flames. The walls shone like alabaster studded with diamonds, while the green boughs overhead and the stems around were of a deep red colour in the light of the fierce blaze. The tea-kettle hissed, fumed, and boiled over into the fire. A mass of pemmican simmered in the lid in front of it. Three pannikins of tea reposed on the green branches, their refreshing contents sending up little clouds of steam, while the ptarmigan, now split up, skewered, and roasted, were being heartily devoured by our three hungry friends.
The pleasures that fall to the lot of man are transient. Doubtless they are numerous and oft recurring; still they are transient, and so—supper came to an end.
“Now for a pipe,” said the accountant, disposing his limbs at full length on a green blanket. “O thou precious weed, what should we do without thee!”
“Smoke tea, to be sure,” answered Harry.