O’Reilly motioned for silence, for at that moment Branch himself approached, his long face set in lines of discontent, even deeper than usual.  He had been wandering about the camp in one of his restless fits, and now he began: 

“Say, what do you think I’ve been doing?”

“I dun’no’,” Captain Judson answered, morosely.  “Cheering the sick and wounded; shedding smiles and sunshine as usual, I suppose?”

“Hunh!  You’re a funny guy, aren’t you?—­about as comical as a chloroform cone.  You make me laugh, you do—­just like a broken leg.  Well, I’ve been looking up some grub for Miss Evans, and I can’t find any.”

“Can’t find any?”

“Nothing fit for her to eat.  You don’t expect her to live on this infernal, eternal, and internal beef stew.”  Branch shuddered and gagged slightly.  “I’ve eaten parts of animals that were never intended to be eaten.  This rebel grub is killing me.  What’ll it do to her?”

“Didn’t Major Ramos bring anything along?” O’Reilly asked.

“He says there’s a famine at Cubitas.”

“We’d better look into this,” Judson exclaimed, and, finding that his clothes were dry, he hurriedly began to dress himself.

Together, the three men made an investigation of the camp’s resources, only to discover that Branch was right.  There was, indeed, but little food of any kind, and that little was of the coarsest.  Ordinarily, such a condition of affairs would have occasioned them no surprise, for the men were becoming accustomed to a more or less chronic scarcity of provisions; but the presence of Norine Evans put quite a different complexion upon the matter.  They were still discussing the situation when Miss Evans, having finished her afternoon nap, threw open the flaps of her tent and stepped out.

When she had listened to the account apologetically submitted by her three friends, she drew her brows together, saying, plaintively:  “Oh dear!  We’ve been going short for a week, and Major Ramos told me we’d fare better when we got here.  I had my mouth all set for a banquet.  Couldn’t you even find the poor dog a bone?”

Norine was thinner and browner than when she had come to Cuba, but she in no way showed the effect of any serious or continued lack of nourishment.  In fact, a simple diet and an outdoor life had agreed with her amazingly.

“I’m afraid the cupboard is bare,” O’Reilly acknowledged.

“They’re getting ready to slaughter another guttapercha ox,” Branch said, gloomily.  “He’s a veteran of the Ten Years’ War.  That means stew again!  Stew!  One puncture-proof, rubber ox and a bushel of sweet-potatoes for four hundred men!”

“Do you know what I want for dinner?” Norine inquired.  “Lamb chops with green peas, some nice white bread, a salad, and coffee.”

The three men looked at her anxiously.  Judson stirred uneasily.

“That’s what I want.  I don’t expect to get it.”