Rain wanted that soup.
No-man did not want soup. He was Hiram J. Kant, a free-born American citizen, what had a right to die if he pleased.
"Not at all," said Storm. "You got no right to sneak out of a fight."
"What fight?"
"I'm Rain's husband."
"Some liar," said No-man with admiration.
"You're going to fight me, Hiram," Storm added, "knives, guns, or teeth, but you'll fight."
"Eh?" The American became quite cheerful with something to look forward to.
"Gimme that soup!"
Both patients were acutely disagreeable. Rain determined to finish murdering No-man the moment she felt well enough, while the trapper had but one motive for living, a duel with his nurse. Moreover, all three of them had to be fed. So the nurse went hunting with No-man's gun or Rain's arrows daily to get meat, just at the height of the season when the animals were either in love or looking after their children. No-man wanted rainbow trout, Rain said fish were unclean. Storm could not catch them anyway, and only the little fishes enjoyed the joke. The camas lilies made the pastures blue as a sunlit lake, and Rain turned rabid vegetarian, but Storm had never learned to use the rooting stick, shaped like a packing needle. The bulbs came up in broken bits. As to the cooking of them in a grass-lined pit, with a fire on top, that really needs a bit of practice, and Rain's explanations in the hand talk were merely an aggravation of his worries. His nursing was rough, his surgery a peril, his hunting a failure, his cookery a besetting sin, his housekeeping an outrage on decency, and in short his conduct of affairs most stimulating. Both patients in self-defense made hasty convalescence.