"Well, never mind. We can rough it--it will be lots of fun!" the girl
laughed so readily as almost to deceive Billy, standing there in his
misery. That a woman should come to him for help, and he not even able
to give her food, was almost unbearable. It were well for the Pilgrim
that Charming Billy Boyle could not at that moment lay hands upon him.

"It will be fun," she laughed again in his face. "If the--the
grubstake is down to a whisper (that's the way you say it, isn't it?)
there will be all the more credit coming to the cook when you see all
the things she can do with dried apricots and tapioca. May I rummage?"

"Sure," assented Billy, dazedly moving aside so that she might reach
the corner where three boxes were nailed by their bottoms to the wall,
curtained with gayly flowered calico and used for a cupboard. "The
Pilgrim," he began for the third time to explain, "went after grub
and is taking his time about getting back. He'd oughta been here day
before yesterday. We might eat his dawg," he suggested, gathering
spirit now that her back was toward him.

Her face appeared at one side of the calico curtain. "I know something
better than eating the dog," she announced triumphantly. "Down there
in the willows where I crossed the creek--I came down that low, saggy
place in the hill--I saw a lot of chickens or something--partridges,
maybe you call them--roosting in a tree with their feathers all puffed
out. It's nearly dark, but they're worth trying for, don't you think?
That is, if you have a gun," she added, as if she had begun to realize
how meagre were his possessions. "If you don't happen to have one, we
can do all right with what there is here, you know."

Billy flushed a little, and for answer took down his gun and belt from