“A good idee!” exclaimed Andy. “Sure he’s a friend o’ mine, and one I’d trust with my last pound o’ bacon! Where’re ye headin’ for, Pete? Anywheres in particular?”
“Dinner,” said Pete Sabatis, lighting his pipe.
“The same old bag o’ tricks,” said Andy to his partner. “I reckon he cal’lates to stop right here with us a spell. That’s yer idee, ain’t it, Pete?”
“Yep,” replied the Maliseet.
Young Dan was glad, for in this one-eyed Indian he saw the solution of the problem that had been causing him such a weight of mental distress all day. He said nothing of what was in his mind, however, but put wood in the stove, washed his hands and commenced preparations for dinner.
Andy Mace talked and Pete Sabatis watched Young Dan with his lively bright eye. Every now and then, Pete uttered a grunt of satisfaction at what he saw.
It was a good dinner, a bang-up dinner, by Right Prong and Tobique standards. It consisted of baked pork-and-beans in a brown crock, very juicy and sweet, and a flock of hot biscuits, and a jar of Mrs. Evans’s strawberry preserve, and tea strong enough to be employed in the heaviest sort of manual labor.
Pete Sabatis was not a large man; and so Young Dan decided that he must have been hollow from his chin clear down to his knees before dinner. After clattering the iron spoon all around the inside of the bean-crock and lifting the last preserved strawberry to his mouth on the blade of his knife, Mr. Sabatis drained the teapot and sat back in his rustic chair. He produced his pipe and looked at Andy Mace.
“Tobac,” he said.
“You pocketed a whole plug o’ mine before dinner,” returned Andy. “An’ ye’ve got a knife to cut it with an’ a pipe to smoke it in. Here’s a match. Hope yer breath to puff with ain’t all gone.”