Casey tried not to watch them eat, but in spite of himself he thought of a prospector whom he had rescued last summer after a five-day fast.  These people ate more than the prospector had eaten, and their eyes followed greedily every mouthful which Casey took, as if they grudged him the food.  Wherefore Casey did not take as many mouthfuls as he would have liked.

“This desert air certainly does put an edge on one’s appetite,” the woman smiled, while she blew across her fourth cup of coffee to cool it, and between breaths bit into a huge bacon sandwich, which Casey could not help knowing was her third.  “Jack, dear, isn’t this coffee delicious!”

“Mah-mal Do we have to p-pay that there g-godsend?  C-can you p-pay for more b-bacon for me, mah-ma?” Junior licked his fingers and twitched a fold of his mother’s soiled skirt.

“Sure, give him more bacon!  All he wants.  I’ll fry another skillet full,” Casey spoke hurriedly, getting out the piece which he had packed away in the bag.

“He’s used to these hold-up joints where they charge you forty cents for a greasy plate,” the man explained, speaking with his mouth full.  “Eat all yuh want, Junior.  This is a barbecue and no collection took up to pay the speaker of the day.”

“We certainly appreciate your kindness, Mister,” the woman put in graciously, holding out her cup.  “What we’d have done, stuck here in the mud with no provisions and no town within miles, heaven only knows.  Was you kidding us,” she added, with a betrayal of more real anxiety than she intended, “when you said Rhyolite is a dead one?  We looked it up on the map, and it was marked like a town.  We’re making all the little towns that the road shows mostly miss.  We give a fine show, Mister.  It’s been played on all the best time in the country—­we took it abroad before the war and made real good money with it.  But we just wanted to see the country, you know—­after doing the cont’nent and all the like of that.  So we thought we’d travel independent and make all the small towns—­”

“The movie trust is what put vodeville on the bum,” the man interrupted.  “We used to play the best time only.  We got a first-class act.  One that ought to draw down good money anywhere, and would draw down good money, if the movie trust—­”

“And then we like to be independent, and go where we like and get off the railroad for a spell.  Freedom is the breath of life to he and I. We’d rather have it kinda rough now and then to be free and independent—­”

“I’ve g-got a b-bunny, a-and it f-fell in the g-grease box a-and we c-can’t wash it off, a-and h-he’s asleep now.  C-can I g-give my b-bunny some b-bacon, Mister G-godsend?”

The woman laughed, and Jack dear laughed, and Casey himself grinned sheepishly.  Casey did not want to be called a godsend, and he hated the term “Mister” when applied to himself.  All his life he had been plain Casey Ryan and proud of it, and his face was very red when he confessed that there was no more bacon.  He had not expected to feed a family when he left camp that morning, but had taken rations for himself only.