"All right," he gave in. "I'm game. I was just thinkin' about
you."
"Then you'd better think I'm game, too," she flashed forgivingly.
"And now we'll have to see about getting things for supper."
They bought a round steak, potatoes, onions, and a dozen eating
apples, then went out from the town to the fringe of trees and
brush that advertised a creek. Beside the trees, on a sand bank,
they pitched camp. Plenty of dry wood lay about, and Billy
whistled genially while he gathered and chopped. Saxon, keen to
follow his every mood, was cheered by the atrocious discord on
his lips. She smiled to herself as she spread the blankets, with
the tarpaulin underneath, for a table, having first removed all
twigs from the sand. She had much to learn in the matter of
cooking over a camp-fire, and made fair progress, discovering,
first of all, that control of the fire meant far more than the
size of it. When the coffee was boiled, she settled the grounds
with a part-cup of cold water and placed the pot on the edge of
the coals where it would keep hot and yet not boil. She fried
potato dollars and onions in the same pan, but separately, and
set them on top of the coffee pot in the tin plate she was to eat
from, covering it with Billy's inverted plate. On the dry hot
pan, in the way that delighted Billy, she fried the steak. This
completed, and while Billy poured the coffee, she served the
steak, putting the dollars and onions back into the frying pan
for a moment to make them piping hot again.
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