otel just as well as not. What
d 'ye think?"

But Saxon shook her head emphatically.

"How long do you think our twenty dollars will last at that rate?
Besides, the only way to begin is to begin at the beginning. We didn't
plan sleeping in hotels."

"All right," he gave in. "I'm game. I was just thinkin' about you."

"Then you'd better think I'm game, too," she flashed forgivingly. "And
now we'll have to see about getting things for supper."

They bought a round steak, potatoes, onions, and a dozen eating apples,
then went out from the town to the fringe of trees and brush that
advertised a creek. Beside the trees, on a sand bank, they pitched
camp. Plenty of dry wood lay about, and Billy whistled genially while he
gathered and chopped. Saxon, keen to follow his every mood, was cheered
by the atrocious discord on his lips. She smiled to herself as she
spread the blankets, with the tarpaulin underneath, for a table, having
first removed all twigs from the sand. She had much to learn in the
matter of cooking over a camp-fire, and made fair progress, discovering,
first of all, that control of the fire meant far more than the size of
it. When the coffee was boiled, she settled the grounds with a part-cup
of cold water and placed the pot on the edge of the coals where it would
keep hot and yet not boil. She fried potato dollars and onions in the
same pan, but separately, and set them on top of the coffee pot in the
tin plate she was to eat from, covering it with Billy's inverted plate.
On the dry hot pan, in the way that delighted Billy, she fried the
steak. This completed, and while Billy poured the coffee, she served
the steak, putting the dollars and onions back into the frying pan for a
moment to make them piping hot again.

"What more d'ye want than this?" Billy challenged with deep-toned
satisfaction, in the pause after his final cup of coffee, while he
rolled a cigarette. He lay on his side, full length, resting on his
elbow. The fire was burning brightly, and Saxon's color was heightened
by the flickering flames. "Now our folks, when they was on the move, had
to be afraid for Indians, and wild animals and all sorts of things; an'
here we are, as safe as bugs in a rug. Take this sand. What better bed
could you ask? Soft as feathers. Say--you look good to me, heap little
squaw. I bet you don't look an inch over sixteen right now, Mrs.
Babe-in-the-Woods."

"Don't I?" she glowed, with a flirt of the head sideward