“We’ll have our picnic here,” she decided.

The ravine at this point received another little gulch into itself, and where the two came together the bottom widened out into almost parklike proportions.  On one side was a grass-plot encroached upon by numerous raspberry vines.  On the other was the brook, flowing noisily in the shade of saplings and of ferns.

Bennington unsaddled the horses and led them over to the grass-plot, where he picketed them securely in such a manner that they could not become entangled.  When he returned to the brookside he found that Mary had undone her bundle and spread out its contents.  There were various utensils, some corn meal, coffee, two slices of ham, raw potatoes, a small bottle of milk, some eggs wonderfully preserved by moss inside the pail, and some bread and cake.  Bennington eyed all this in dismay.  She caught his look and laughed.

“Can’t you cook?  Well, I can; you just obey orders.”

“We won’t get anything to eat before night,” objected Bennington dolefully as he looked over the decidedly raw material.

“And he’s so hungry!” she teased.  “Never mind, you build a fire.”

Bennington brightened.  He had one outdoor knack—­that of lighting matches in a wind and inducing refractory wood to burn.  His skill had often been called into requisition in the igniting of beach fires, and the so-called “camp fires” of girls.  He collected dry twigs from the sunny places, cut slivers with his knife, built over the whole a wigwam-shaped pyramid of heavier twigs, against which he leaned his firewood.  Then he touched off the combination.  The slivers ignited the twigs, the twigs set fire to the wigwam, the wigwam started the firewood.  Bennington’s honour was vindicated.  He felt proud.

Mary, who had been filling the coffee pot at the creek, approached and viewed the triumph.  She cast upon it the glance of scorn.

“That’s no cooking fire,” said she.

So Bennington, under her directions, placed together the two parallel logs with the hewn sides and built the small bright fire between them.

“Now you see,” she explained, “I can put my frying pan, and coffee pot, and kettle across the two logs.  I can get at them easy, and don’t burn my fingers.  Now you may peel the potatoes.”

The Easterner peeled potatoes under constant laughing amendment as to method.  Then the small cook collected her materials about her, in grand preparation for the final rites.  She turned back the loose sleeves of her blouse to the elbow.

This drew an exclamation from Bennington.

“Why, Mary, how white your arms are!” he cried, astonished.

She surveyed her forearm with a little blush, turning it back and forth.

“I am pretty tanned,” she agreed.

The coffee pot was filled and placed across the logs at one end, and left to its own devices a little removed from the hottest of the fire.  The kettle stood next, half filled with salted water, in which nestled the potatoes like so many nested eggs.  Mary mixed a mysterious concoction of corn meal, eggs, butter, and some white powder, mushing the whole up with milk and water.  The mixture she spread evenly in the bottom of the frying pan, which she set in a warm place.