“If you’ll ’scuse me, Mister Patroncito, I’ll git supper.”
He spoke as if this were an operation requiring great culinary skill and much previous preparation. It consisted in cutting three steaks, with his sheath-knife, from the deer’s ham, and placing them with a lump of fat in the frying-pan over the fire. These turned and browned, two tin cups filled with water, and the supper was ready.
The guest took kindly enough to the venison. He tasted the water and paused. “I’ll thank you for a cup of hot coffee, Don Cherokee Sam, with plenty of sugar in it, if you please.”
Don Cherokee Sam was embarrassed at this polite but luxurious request.
“Coffee’s bad,” he said, shaking his head. “It spiles my nerve so’s I can’t draw a stiddy bead. Water’s best, patroncito.”
The guest was truly polite. He emptied his cup with the best of grace. But presently he paused again in his consumption of venison.
“Pardon me, but you have forgotten the bread.”
The host arose. What could he set before this youthful sybarite from the plaza?
“Bread’s been mighty scarce with me this winter,” he muttered. “And I planted a good plenty of corn out thar too.”
The recollection roused his rankling resentment, and he paused.