!
The shining knife of Daddy Dan divided it into delectable bits with the
speed of light, and it needed only the slightest amount of experimenting
and cautious glances to discover that one could use a fork daggerwise,
and when in doubt even seize upon a morsel with one's fingers and wipe
the fingers afterwards on a bit of the dry grass. One could grasp the
cup by both sides, scorning the silly handle, and if occasionally one
sipped the coffee with a little noise--which added astonishingly to the
taste--there was no sharp warning, no frowning eye to overlook. Besides,
at Munner's table, there was never time to pay attention to Joan, for
there was talk about vague, abstract things--the price of skins,
the melting of the snows, the condition of the passes, the long and
troubling argument about the wicker chairs, with some remarkably foolish
asides, now and then, concerning happiness and love--when all the time
any one with half an eye could see that the thing to do was to eat
and eat and eat until that hollow place ceased to be. Talking came
afterwards.

In the house of Daddy Dan all these things were ordered as they should
be. Not a word was said; not a glance of criticism rested upon her; when
her tin plate was cleared she heard no reproofs for eating too greedily,
but she was furnished anew from the store of good things on the rock.

In place of conversation, there were other matters to occupy the mind
during the meal. For presently she observed the beautiful head of Satan
just behind his master--Satan, who could pass over noisy gravel with
the softness of a cat, and now loomed out of the deeper night down the
cavern. Inch by inch, with infinite caution and keenly pricked ears,
the head lowered beside Dan, and the quivering, delicate muzzle stole
towards a fragment of the "pone." Joan watched breathlessly and then she
saw that in spite of the caution of that movement her father knew all
about it--just a glint of amusement in the corner of his eyes, just a
slight twitch at the corners of his mouth to tell Joan that he was as
delighted as a boy playing a trick. Barely in time to save the morsel
of pone, he spoke and the head was dashed up. Yet Satan was not entirely
discouraged. If he could not steal the bread he would beg for it. It
made Joan pause in her destruction of the edibles, not to watch openly,
for an instinct told her that the thing to do was to note these by-plays
from the corner of one's eye, as Daddy Dan di