e spread,
the fire had been drawn aside, disclosing a bean-hole, out of which
Hiram K. was lifting an oven. He took off the lid. Two of the plumpest,
brownest ducks that ever tempted any one were fairly swimming in gravy.
Two loaves of what he called punk, with a box of crackers, lay on a
newspaper. He mimicked me exactly when he asked me to take supper with
him, and I tried hard to imitate him in promptitude when I accepted.
The babies had some of the crackers wet with hot water and a little of
the gravy. We soon had the rest looking scarce. The big white stars
were beginning to twinkle before we were through, but the camp-fire was
bright, and we all felt better-natured. Men are not alone in having a
way to their heart through their stomach.

I made our bed beneath the wagon, and Hiram K. fixed his canvas
around, so we should be sheltered. I felt so much better and thought so
much better of him that I could laugh and chat gayly. "Now, tell me,"
he asked, as he fastened the canvas to a wheel, "didn't you think I was
an old devil at first?" "Yes, I did," I answered. "Well," he said, "I
am; so you guessed right." After I put the children to bed, we sat by
the fire and talked awhile. I told him how I happened to be gadding
about in "such onconsequential" style, and he told me stories of when
the country was new and fit to live in. "Why," he said, in a burst of
enthusiasm, "time was once when you went to bed you were not sure
whether you'd get up alive and with your scalp on or not, the Injins
were that thick. And then there was white men a durned sight worse;
they were likely to plug you full of lead just to see you kick. But
now," he continued mournfully, "a bear or an antelope, maybe an elk, is
about all the excitement we can expect. Them good old days are gone."
I am mighty glad of it; a drunken Pete is bad enough for me.

I was tired, so soon I went to bed. I could hear him as he cut cedar
boughs for his own fireside bed, and as he rattled around among his
pots and pans. Did you ever eat pork and beans heated in a frying-pan
on a camp-fire for breakfast? Then if you have not, there is one
delight left you. But you must be away out in Wyoming, with the morning
sun just gilding the distant peaks, and your pork and beans must be out
of a can, heated in a disreputable old frying-pan, served with coffee
_boiled_ in a battered old pail and drunk from a tomato-can. You'll
_never_ want iced melons, powdered sugar, and fruit,