and packing the meat did not occupy twenty minutes. Before leaving these expert butchers treated themselves to a little of the marrow and warm liver in a raw state!
Cameron and Joe walked up to the group while they were indulging in this little feast.
“Well, I’ve often seen that eaten, but I never could do it myself,” remarked the former.
“No!” cried Joe in surprise; “now that’s oncommon cur’us. I’ve lived on raw liver an’ marrow-bones for two or three days at a time, when we wos chased by the Camanchee Injuns an’ did’nt dare to make a fire; an’ it’s raal good, it is. Won’t ye try it now?”
Cameron shook his head.
“No, thankee; I’ll not refuse when I can’t help it, but until then I’ll remain in ignorance of how good it is.”
“Well, it is strange how some folk can’t abide anything in the meat way they han’t bin used to. D’ye know I’ve actually knowed men from the cities as wouldn’t eat a bit o’ horseflesh for love or money. Would ye believe it?”
“I can well believe that, Joe, for I have met with such persons myself; in fact, they are rather numerous. What are you chuckling at, Joe?”
“Chucklin’? If ye mean ‘larfin into myself,’ it’s because I’m thinking o’ a chap as comed out to the prairies.”
“Let us walk back to the camp, Joe, and you can tell me about him as we go along.”
“I think,” continued Joe, “he comed from Washington, but I never could make out right whether he wos a Government man or not. Anyhow, he wos a pheelosopher—a natterlist I think he call his-self—”
“A naturalist,” suggested Cameron.
“Ay, that wos more like it. Well, he wos about six feet two in his moccasins, an’ as thin as a ramrod, an’ as blind as a bat—leastways he had weak eyes an’ wore green spectacles. He had on a gray shootin’ coat an’ trousers an’ vest an’ cap, with rid whiskers an’ a long nose as rid at the point as the whiskers wos.
“Well, this gentleman engaged me an’ another hunter to go a trip with him into the prairies, so off we sot one fine day on three bosses, with our blankets at our backs—we was to depend on the rifle for victuals. At first I thought the natterlist one o’ the cruellest beggars as iver went on two long legs, for he used to go about everywhere pokin’ pins through all the beetles an’ flies an’ creepin’ things he
