ner than a witness.

As for Charles, he affected to be really eager for owl meat. He said
that all his life he had looked forward to this time. Still, he was
slow, I thought. He seemed about as eager for supper as a boy is to
carry in the evening wood. He said that one of the canoes leaked a
little and ought to be pitched right away. I said it was altogether too
damp for such work and that the canoe would wait till morning. Then he
wanted to look up a spring, though there were two or three in plain
sight, within twenty yards of the camp. I suspected at last that he was
not really anxious to cook the owl and was trying to postpone the matter
until it was too late for him (the owl) to get properly done before
bedtime. Then I became firm. I said that a forest agreement was sacred.
That we were pledged to the owl before we shot him, and that we would
keep our promise to the dead, even to the picking of his bones.

Wood was gathered then, and the fire blazed. The owl's breast--fat and
fine it looked--was in the broiler, and on the fire. There it
cooked--and cooked. Then it cooked some more and sent up an appetizing
smell. Now and then, I said I thought the time for it had come, but
there was a burden of opinion that more cooking would benefit the owl.
Meantime, we had eaten a pan or two of trout and a few other things--the
bird of course being later in the bill of fare. At most dinners I have
attended, this course is contemplated with joy. It did not seem to be on
this occasion. Eddie agreed with Del that he had never cared much for
bird, anyway, and urged me to take his share. I refused to deprive him
of it. Then he said he didn't feel well, and thought he really ought not
to eat anything more. I said grimly that possibly this was true, but
that he would eat the owl.

It was served then, fairly divided and distributed, as food is when men
are on short rations. I took the first taste--I was always
venturesome--a little one. Then, immediately, I wished I had accepted
Eddie's piece. But meantime he had tasted, too--a miserly taste--and
then I couldn't have got the rest of it for money.

For there was never anything so good as that breast of young owl. It was
tender, it was juicy, it was as delicately flavored as a partridge,
almost. Certainly it was a dainty morsel to us who had of late dealt so
largely in fish diet. Had we known where the rest of that brood of owls
had flown to we should have started after them, then and t