"Oh, yes; there are Berries hereabouts, but they're all hard and bitter. The white Dogberries, and the pink Buffalo-berries, and the Wolf-willow berries--what are they? Perhaps not to be despised in this Year of Famine, for they pucker up one's stomach until a Cub's ration fills it; but the Saskatoons are now dry on the Bush, and I miss them sorely. Gluck! they're the berries--full of oil, not vinegar; a feed of them is like eating a little Sucking Pig."
"What's a Sucking Pig?" queried Lynx; "I never saw one growing."
"I know," declared Carcajou. "The Priest over at Wapiscaw had six little white fellows in a small corral. They had voices like Pallas, the Black Eagle. I could always tell when they were being fed, their wondrous song reached a good three miles."
"That's where I got mine," remarked Muskwa, looking cautiously about to see that there were no eavesdroppers; "I had three, and the Priest keeps three. But talking of food, one Summer I crossed the great up-hills that Men call Rockies, and along the rivers of that land grows just the loveliest Berry any poor Bear ever ate."
"Saskatoons?" queried Carcajou.
"No, the Salmon Berry--great, yellow, juicy chaps, the size of Mooswa's nose."
"Fat Birds! what a sized Berry!" ejaculated the Widow, dubiously.
"Well, almost as big," modified Muskwa; "and sweet and nippy. Ugh! ugh! It was like eating a handful of the fattest black Ants you ever tasted."
"I don't eat Ants," declared the Red Widow.
"Neither did I this morning, I'm sorry to say," added Bear, hungrily.