“It’s Squaw’s Mixture,” answered Mat, with three distinct taps of asseveration.
Mr. Blyth and Zack laughed, under the impression that their queer companion was joking with them. Mat looked steadily and sternly from one to the other; then repeated with the gruffest gravity—“I tell you, it’s Squaw’s Mixture.”
“What a very curious name! how is it made?” asked Valentine.
“Enough Brandy to spile the Water. Enough Rum to spile the Brandy and Water. Enough Lemon to spile the Rum and Brandy and Water. Enough Sugar to spile everything. That’s ‘Squaw’s Mixture,’” replied Mat with perfect calmness and deliberation.
Zack began to laugh uproariously. Mat became more inflexibly grave than ever. Mr. Blyth felt that he was growing interested on the subject of the Squaw’s Mixture. He stirred it diffidently with his spoon, and asked with great curiosity how his host first learnt to make it.
“When I was out, over there, in the Nor’-West,” began Mat, nodding towards the particular point of the compass that he mentioned.
“When he says Nor’-West, and wags his addled old head like that at the chimney-pots over the way, he means North America,” Zack explained.
“When I was out Nor’-West,” repeated Mat, heedless of the interruption, “working along with the exploring gang, our stock of liquor fell short, and we had to make the best of it in the cold with a spirt of spirits and a pinch of sugar, drowned in more hot water than had ever got down the throat of e’er a man of the lot of us before. We christened the brew ‘Squaw’s Mixture,’ because it was such weak stuff that even a woman couldn’t have got drunk on it if she tried. Squaw means woman in those parts, you know; and Mixture means—what you’ve got afore you now. I knowed you couldn’t stand regular grog, and that’s why I cooked it up for you. Don’t keep on stirring of it with a spoon like that, or you’ll stir it away altogether. Try it.”
“Let me try it—let’s see how weak it is,” cried Zack, reaching over to Valentine.
“Don’t you go a-shoving of your oar into another man’s rollocks,” said Mat, dexterously knocking Zack’s spoon out of his hand just as it touched Mr. Blyth’s tumbler. “You stick to your grog; I’ll stick to my grog; and he’ll stick to Squaw’s Mixture.” With those words, Mat leant his bare elbows on the table, and watched Valentine’s first experimental sip with great curiosity.