"It's only ord'nary hawse sense," Dave added when Carney did not speak; "kept in the snow that meat'd last us a month. Feelin's don't count when a man's playin' fer his life, and that's what we're doin'."
"I don't dispute the sense of your proposition, my kind friend," Carney said in a well-mastered voice: "I'm not hungry just now, and I'll think it over. I've got a sneaking regard for the little buckskin, but, of course, if I don't get out he'd starve to death anyway."
"Take your time," and the owner of the pan pulled it between his legs, ate the slice of bacon, and with a tin spoon lapped up the glutinous mess.
Carney watched this performance, smothering the anger and hunger that were now battling in him. It was a one-sided argument; the other man had a gun, and Carney knew that he would use it the minute his store of provisions were gone—perhaps before that. And Carney was determined to make the discussion more equitable. Once he could put a hand on the dictator, the lop-sided argument would true itself up. As to killing the little buckskin that had saved his life—bah! the very idea of it made his fingers twitch for a grasp of the other's windpipe.
For a long time Carney sat moodily turning over in his mind something; and the other man, having lighted his pipe, sat back against the wall of the cave smoking.
At last Carney spoke. "There's a way out of this."
"Yes, if a chinook blows up Kettlebelly Valley—there ain't no other way. The manna days is all gone by."
"There's another way. This is an old worked-out mine we're in, the Lost Ledge Mine."
"She's worked out, right enough. There never was nothin' but a few stringers of gold—they soon petered out."
"When the men who were working this mine pulled out they left a lot of heavy truck behind," Carney continued. "There's a forge, coal, tools, and, what I'm thinking of, half a dozen sets of horse snowshoes back there. I could put a set of those snowshoes on the buckskin and make Bucking Horse in three or four days. He wore them down in the Cour d'Alene."