“That peer arrives in the afternoon, and he never makes a request any more than a corpse.  Beyond a marked disposition to herd by himself and to maintain the greatest possible distance between his own person and a six-shooter, he don’t vary none from the bulk of tenderfeet.  At night, when all parties retires, and Joplin Joe ponders on them untouched, effete luxuries in the store-room, and how the can-opener ’ain’t once been dimmed in the cause of hospitality, it frets him considerable, and he feels he ain’t doin’ his duty to the absent Billy Ames.

“At sunrise he can stand it no longer.  He thunders on the Britisher’s door with the butt of his six-shooter, calling out: 

“‘Peer, peer, be you awake?’

“The peer allowed he was, though his teeth was rattling like broken crockery.

“‘Peer, would you relish some “salmon esplinade"?’

“The peer allowed he wouldn’t.

“‘Peer, would you relish some “chicken marine-go"?’

“The peer allowed he shore wouldn’t, and the crockery rattled harder than ever.  Joplin Joe then tried him on the hair-oil and the throat lozengers, the peer declining each with thanks.

“‘Peer,’ said Joplin Joe, fair busting with hospitality, ’is there anything in this Gawd’s world that you do want?’

“The crockery rattled an interlood, then Joplin Joe made out: 

“’Thanks, very much.  I should like a ba-ath’—­Clematis, you see if them biscuits is brownin’.

“Joe he ran to the store-room, and his eye encountered a barrel of corned-beef.  He calls to a couple of cow-punchers, and the first thing you know that late corned steer is piled onto the prairie and them cow-punchers is hustling the empty barrel in to the peer.  Next they detaches the steps from the kitchen door, ropes ’em to the barrel and introduces the peer to his bath.  He’s good people all right, and when he sees they calls his bluff he steps in all right and lets ’em soak him a couple of buckets.  This here move restores all parties to a mutual understanding, and the peer he bathes in the corned-beef barrel regular durin’ his stay—­you see the habit had cinched him.”

Ned had shot an antelope a day or two previous, and antelope steak, broiled over a glowing bed of wood coals, with black coffee, stewed dried apples, and soda biscuit made up what Mary found to be an unexpectedly palatable breakfast.  As camp did not include a cow, no milk or butter was served with meals.  Nevertheless, the hungry tenderfoot was quite content, and missed none of the appurtenances she had been brought up to believe essential to a civilized meal, not even the little silver jug that Aunt Martha always insisted came over with William the Conqueror—­Aunt Martha scorned the May-flower contingent as parvenus.

The family sat on the grass, tailor fashion, and every one helped himself to what appetite prompted, in a fashion that suggested brilliant gymnastic powers.  To pass a dish to any one, the governess discovered, was construed as an evidence of mental weakness and eccentricity.  The family satisfied its appetite without assistance or amenities, but with the skill of a troupe of jugglers.