It all came back to Amos later on, under entirely different conditions; to give him new chances for anxiety.
The hour was getting rather late, and still Hackett lingered on, loth to once more continue his lonely tramp. He said he was waiting for the moon to rise; but even after the battered remnant of the heavenly luminary put in an appearance over the trees across the river, he made no movement looking to immediate departure.
“Why do you suppose he keeps hanging on so?” Teddy managed to ask Amos, aside, as they chanced to enter the tent together for some purpose.
“P’raps he wants you to ask him to have another little snack?” suggested the woods boy, with a chuckle.
“Well, he’ll wait a long time, then, I tell you,” complained Teddy. “Why, that fellow could eat us out of house and home in three days, and then not half try. Did you ever see such a mouth? He takes a bite that would be three to me.”
“Huh! I cooked for him one winter,” remarked Amos, as though that circumstance ought to tell how much he knew concerning the capacity of Big Gabe to stow away provisions. “Kept us busy, right along, too, I’m promising you. But we’d better get outside again; he’s that slick he might pull the wool over Dolph’s eyes, and make away with a package of our coffee.”
When they came out, greatly to their delight they found that Gabe was on his feet, stretching his six feet three.
“Hate ter do hit the wust kind, boys,” he was remarking. “You all hev been so kind to me, I’d like ter stop over jest till mawnin’, so’ds ter hev another drink o’ that fine coffee. Don’t s’pose now, he could spare a feller one leetle cupful o’ the same? I’d take it handsome now, sure I would. An’ it’d help me git over the miles I gotter go afore mawnin’; jest ter smell it every little while’d help right sum.”
Teddy jumped over to the mess chest. There was a can full of the ground coffee in this; and besides, he calculated that they had an abundance, and to spare. Even if they had to go on short rations, if the giving of a cup of the pulverized berry from the South Seas could help hurry Gabe off, he was willing to endure the privation.