and ate and drank as though he were alone in the cabin.
Whenever Bud's mind left Lovin Child long enough to think about it, he
watched Cash furtively for some sign of yielding, some softening of that
grim grudge. It seemed to him as though Cash was not human, or he would
show some signs of life when a live baby was brought to camp and laid
down right under his nose.

Cash finished and began washing his dishes, keeping his back turned
toward Bud and Bud's new possession, and trying to make it appear that
he did so unconsciously. He did not fool Bud for a minute. Bud knew that
Cash was nearly bursting with curiosity, and he had occasional fleeting
impulses to provoke Cash to speech of some sort. Perhaps Cash knew
what was in Bud's mind. At any rate he left the cabin and went out and
chopped wood for an hour, furiously raining chips into the snow.

When he went in with his arms piled full of cut wood, Bud had the baby
sitting on one corner of the table, and was feeding it bread and
gravy as the nearest approach to baby food he could think of. During
occasional interludes in the steady procession of bits of bread from the
plate to the baby's mouth, Lovin Child would suck a bacon rind which
he held firmly grasped in a greasy little fist. Now and then Bud would
reach into his hip pocket, pull out his handkerchief as a make-shift
napkin, and would carefully wipe the border of gravy from the baby's
mouth, and stuff the handkerchief back into his pocket again.

Both seemed abominably happy and self-satisfied. Lovin Child kicked
his heels against the rough table frame and gurgled unintelligible
conversation whenever he was able to articulate sounds. Bud replied
with a rambling monologue that implied a perfect understanding of Lovin
Child's talk--and incidentally doled out information for Cash's benefit.

Cash cocked an eye at the two as he went by, threw the wood down on his
side of the hearth, and began to replenish the fire. If he heard, he
gave no sign of understanding or interest.

"I'll bet that old squaw musta half starved yah," Bud addressed the baby
while he spooned gravy out of a white enamel bowl on to the second slice
of bread. "You're putting away grub like a nigger at a barbecue. I'll
tell the world I don't know what woulda happened if I hadn't run across
yuh and made her hand yuh over."

"Ja--ja--ja--jah!" said Lovin Child, nodding his head and regarding Bud
with the twinkle in his eyes.

"And that's where y