“Now what am I to do?” he cried, in utter disgust. “By Jingo, I’m blocked—blocked for fair. Horses are mighty good swimmers, I know; but trustin’ my safety to a nag when there’s no one around to give me a hand if anything happens doesn’t suit me.”
Larry’s impatience soon began to change into genuine alarm. He could discover no place, either up or down the river, where he dared to ford. At last, completely at a loss to know what to do, he sprang to the ground.
The thought of being obliged to pass the night alone filled him with dread. For the first time he began bitterly to regret his course.
“From the map I judged this river to be a small affair like some of the others the crowd crossed,” he grumbled. “But, hang it all, this might as well be the Atlantic Ocean.”
It was a long time before Larry’s unhappy frame of mind permitted him to get up sufficient energy to search for a camping place. About a hundred feet from the river a thick clump of bushes spotted the prairie; and their shelter, he decided, was more inviting than the broad open stretches.
After unsaddling and picketing his horse, he drew a hatchet from his belt and sallied out in search of wood. It seemed as though the irony of fate was plunging him right into the kind of work he so cordially detested.
“I reckon this would make Tom Clifton laugh,” he thought, with a smile which had little mirth in it.
The necessity for swift work if he wished to have supper before dark put some action into his big frame; so, in a comparatively short time, an armful of wood was carried over to the camp. Larry was doubtful about his ability as chef, never having prepared a meal in his life. Still, he reflected, cooking bacon and potatoes requires but little skill. The quantity of coffee to use, however, puzzled him.
“I guess it isn’t more’n a cupful, anyway,” he remarked, aloud.
A roaring fire was immediately kindled and saddle bags unpacked. Larry, as might have been expected, soon succeeded in burning his fingers, as well as the bacon. The gravy caught fire, and in attempting to put it out he knocked several of the largest slices into the flames, thereby adding for a few seconds a furious sputtering and hissing.