‘You’re a genius, Grizzly, as I’ve said before,’ remarked Lucius. ‘But I wish you hadn’t cut your finger like that.’
‘Pooh! ’tain’t nuthin’,’ answered Ephraim, vigorously sucking the wounded member. ‘I tell ye what it is, Luce, ef we don’t git suthin’ ter eat pretty soon, I’ll hev ter begin on my boots. I’m thet low, ye can’t imagine.’
‘Can’t I?’ replied Lucius. ‘Ever since I got that whiff of coffee in my nostrils, I’ve been sighing for some. Seriously, though, we must get food somewhere. We can’t go on walking all day upon nothing.’
‘The cunnel ’lowed he war goin’ ter teach us ter dance upon nuthin’,’ said Ephraim, chuckling at the reminiscence. ‘The very fust Yank I come across, I’m goin’ up ter him to arsk him fer a bite er suthin’.’
‘And suppose he hasn’t got anything?’
‘Oh! drap yer supposin’, Luce. I tell ye it’s a sartinty. But ’sposin’ he han’t, since ye will be always ’sposin’, then I’ll eat him ez he stands, and make no bones about it.’
‘Supposing it’s the colonel,’ laughed Lucius.
‘Aw, yah! No, I wouldn’t tech his pesky carcass with a forty-foot pole with an iron spike on the end er it.’
‘I’d give something to know whereabouts we are,’ said Lucius. ‘How do we know we are in the valley at all?’
‘Pho!’ answered Ephraim, ‘I ’low I never thought er it in thet light. Er co’se we mought hev been blown across the Blue Ridge during the night; but I reckon not. I should say we’re in the valley right enuff, somewhar ’twixt Staunton and Winchester.’