“It’s passing noon, and I think I’ll get something to eat,” Terabon suggested; “I’ll get up my––”
“I forgot to eat!” Carline said. “I’ve got everything, and that knob there is a three-burner oil stove. We’ll eat on board. Never mind your stuff, I’ve got so much it’ll spoil—but I ain’t much of a cook!”
“I’m the original cook the Cæsars wanted to buy for gold!” Terabon boasted. “I got some squirrels, there, I killed up on Buffalo Island, and we’ll fry them.”
Nor did he fail to make his boast good, for he soon had hot-bread, gravy browned in the pan, boiled sweet potatoes, and canned corn ready for the table. When they sat down to eat, Carline confessed that he hadn’t 70 had a real meal for a week except one he ate in a Cairo restaurant.
“I could have got a kind of a meal,” he admitted, “but you see I was worried a good deal. Did you stop at Stillhouse Island?”
“Where’s that?”
“Just above Gage, kind of across from St. Genevieve.”
“Let’s see—oh, yes. There was an old fellow there, what’s his name? He told me if I happened to see his daughter I should tell her to write him, for her mother wanted to hear.”
“He said that! And you—it was Crele, Darien Crele said that?”
“That’s the name—Nelia, his daughter.”