a small coffee-pot. "Whoever brought us here didn't mean
that we should starve for a day or two, at least. Shall we breakfast
first and investigate afterward?"

"'We?'" she said. "Can you cook?"

"Not so that any one would notice it," he laughed. "Can you?"

She matched the laugh, and it relieved him mightily. It was her
undoubted right as a woman to cry out, or faint, or be foolishly
hysterical if she chose; the circumstances certainly warranted
anything. But she was apparently waiving her privilege.

"Yes, I ought to be able to cook. When I am at home I teach domestic
science in a girls' school. Will you make a fire?"

Prime bestirred himself like a seasoned camper--which was as far as
possible from being the fact. There was plenty of dry wood at hand, and
a bit of stripped birch bark answered for kindling. The young woman
removed her coat and pulled up her sleeves. Prime cut the bacon with his
pocket-knife, and, much to the detriment of the same implement, opened a
can of peaches. For the bread, Domestic Science wrestled heroically with
a lack of appliances; the batter had to be stirred in the tiny skillet
with water taken from the lake.

The cooking was also difficult. Being strictly city-bred, neither of
them knew enough to let the fire burn down to coals, and they tried to
bake the pan-bread over the flames. The result was rather smoky and
saddening, and the young woman felt called upon to apologize. But the
peaches, fished out of the tin with a sharpened birch twig for a fork,
were good, and so was the bacon; and for sauce there was a fair degree
of outdoor hunger. Over the breakfast they plunged once more into the
mystery.

"Let us try it by the process of elimination," Prime suggested. "First,
let me see if I can cancel myself. When I am at home in New York my name
is Donald Prime, and I am a perfectly harmless writer of stories. The
editors are the only people who really hate me, and you could hardly
charge this"--with an arm-wave to include the surrounding
wilderness--"to the vindictiveness of an editor, could you?"

He wished to make her laugh again, and he succeeded--in spite of the sad
pan-bread.

"Perhaps you have been muck-raking somebody in your stories," she
remarked. "But that wouldn't include me. I am even more harmless than
you are. My worst enemies are frivolous girls from well-to-do families
who think it beneath them to learn to cook scientifically."

"It's a joke," Prime offered sober