“I’m thinkin’,” suggested David as he dropped four or five thick slices of pork into the kettle of goose, “’twould be fine to have hot bread with the goose.”

“Oh, make un!  Make un!” exclaimed Jamie.

“Aye,” seconded Andy, “hot bread would go fine with the goose.”

Andy fetched the flour up from the boat and David dipped about a quart of it into the mixing pan.  To this he added four heaping teaspoonfuls of baking-powder and two level teaspoonfuls of salt.  After stirring the baking-powder and salt well into the flour, he added to it a heaping cooking-spoonful of lard—­a quantity equal to two heaping tablespoonfuls.  This he rubbed into the flour with the back of the large cooking spoon until it was thoroughly mixed.  He now added water while he mixed it with the flour, a little at a time, until the dough was of the consistency of stiff biscuit dough.

The bread was now ready to bake.  There was no oven, and the frying-pan must needs serve instead.  The interior of the frying-pan he sprinkled liberally with flour that the dough might not stick to it.  Then cutting a piece of dough from the mass he pulled it into a cake just large enough to fit into the frying-pan and about half an inch in thickness, and laid the cake carefully in the pan.

With a stick he raked from the fire some hot coals.  With the coals directly behind the pan, and with the bread in the pan facing the fire, and exposed to the direct heat, he placed it at an angle of forty-five degrees, supporting it in that position with a sharpened stick, one end forced into the earth and the tip of the handle resting upon the other end.  The bread thus derived heat at the bottom from the coals and at the top from the main fire.

“She’s risin’ fine!” Jamie presently announced.

“She’ll rise fast enough,” David declared confidently.  “There’s no fear of that.”

There was no fear indeed.  In ten minutes the loaf had increased to three times its original thickness and the side nearer the ground took on a delicate brown, for the greater heat of a fire is always reflected toward the ground.  David removed the pan from its support, and without lifting the loaf from the pan, moved it round until the brown side was opposite the handle.  Then he returned the pan to its former position.  Now the browned half was on the upper or handle side, while the unbrowned half was on the side near the ground, and in a few minutes the whole loaf was deliciously browned.

While the bread was baking David drove a stick into the ground at one side and a little farther from the fire than the pan.  When the loaf had browned on top to his satisfaction he removed it from the pan and leaned it against the stick with the bottom exposed to the fire, and proceeded to bake a second loaf.

“Let me have the dough that’s left,” Jamie begged.

“Aye, take un if you likes,” David consented.  “There’ll be too little for another loaf, whatever.”