their
preparations swiftly. Dud took charge of affairs. He noticed that his
companion was white to the lips.

"I'll knock together a batch of biscuits while you fry the steaks. Brace
up, kid. Throw out yore chest. We better play we're drunk too," he said
in a murmur that reached only Bob.

While Bob sliced the steaks from the elk hanging from pegs fastened in
the mud mortar between the logs of the wall, Dud was busy whipping up a
batch of biscuits. The Indians, packed tight as sardines in the room,
crowded close to see how it was done. Hollister had two big frying-pans
on the stove with lard heating in them. He slapped the dough in,
spattering boiling grease right and left. One pockmarked brave gave an
anguished howl of pain. A stream of sizzling lard had spurted into his
face.

The other Utes roared with glee. The aboriginal sense of humor may not be
highly developed, but it is easily aroused. The friends of the outraged
brave stamped up and down the dirt floor in spasms of mirth. They clapped
him on the back and jabbered ironic inquiries as to his well-being. For
the moment, at least, Dud was as popular as a funny clown in a sawdust
ring.

Colorow and his companions were fed. The stove roared. The frying-pans
were kept full of meat and biscuits. The two white men discarded coats,
vests, and almost their shirts. Sweat poured down their faces. They stood
over the red-hot cook stove, hour after hour, while the Utes gorged. The
steaks of the elk, the hind quarters, the fore quarters, all vanished
into the sixteen distended stomachs. Still the Indians ate, voraciously,
wolfishly, as though they could never get enough. It was not a meal but
an endurance contest.

Occasionally some wag would push forward the pockmarked brave and demand
of Dud that he baptize him again, and always the puncher made motions of
going through the performance a second time. The joke never staled. It
always got a hand, no matter how often it was repeated. At each encore
the Utes stamped their flatfooted way round the room in a kind of
impromptu and mirthful dance. The baptismal jest never ceased to be a
scream.

Dud grinned at Dillon. "These wooden heads are so fond of chestnuts I'm
figurin' on springin' on them the old one about why a hen crosses the
road. Bet it would go big. If they got the point. But I don't reckon they
would unless I had a hen here to show 'em."

The feast ended only when the supplies gave out. Two and a half sacks of