390 



RECREATION 



city, whose dainty stomach rebels at 

 aught but the most delicate of food, 

 served and garnished in the most entic- 

 ing manner ; you whose over-burdened 

 stomach refuses to demand nutriment 

 until the torpid mucous membrane is 

 stimulated by a cocktail, what do you 

 know about enjoying food? You ex- 

 perts in dinners, you gourmands and ep- 

 icures, what do you know of the de- 

 lights of feeding? All your skill is 

 spent in coaxing up an artificial appe- 

 tite. Of the real exquisite pleasure or 

 eating you know nothing, absolutely 

 nothing. Nature knows her business, 

 and munificently rewards her followers. 

 When Mother Nature sees that more 

 fuel is needed to run her engines, she 

 sends a messenger called Hunger to the 

 engineer; and so importunate is this 

 messenger that the engineer makes all 

 haste to comply with his demands. Raw 

 meat is disgusting, looks bloodv and 

 red ; yet, my dainty young man, trifling 

 with your dinner and complaining of 

 dyspepsia, if exercise and exposure had 

 kept your machinery running until the 

 furnace really needed more fuel — in 

 other words, if you were really suffer- 

 ing the pangs of hunger, that disgusting 

 lump of raw meat would change in ap- 

 pearance. You would admire the color, 

 gloat over the texture, devour it, and 

 experience the delightful sensation 

 while so doing with which Nature re- 

 wards all who obey her laws. 



The meat I smelled was being 

 cooked ; but I had not reached the raw 

 meat stage yet. It was bear-meat, griz- 

 zly bear meat, and I am afraid you 

 would say it was worse than very coarse 

 pork. But Pete and I thought it better 

 than broiled pompano, stewed terrapin, 

 or any fancy dish with mushroom shirt- 

 studs and a French name you may sug- 

 gest. We used a little gunpowder for 

 salt, but, my ! how the juice did run 

 down the corners of our mouths ! How 

 the burned edges added flavor to the 

 rare middle pieces! Of course, you 

 can't appreciate our enjoyment in the 

 mere act of satisfying our physical na- 

 ture after a -fast of nearly twenty-four 



hours any more than you can under- 

 stand, as you puff your imported cigar, 

 how soothing, how sweet, and how good 

 our plug tobacco tasted in our briar- 

 wood pipes. "Civilization, in its mod- 

 ern sense of luxury, may be all right for 

 old people and invalids ; but for the 

 young and healthy, the less they have 

 to do with it, the better they will enjoy 

 life." So Big Pete said, and so I be- 

 lieved. Even my battered face and lame 

 ankle, which would have been consid- 

 ered quite serious at home, were only 

 a joke here. Under the broad heavens, 

 with the bracing mountain air filling my 

 lungs and my healthy blood dancing 

 through my veins, each corpuscle like a 

 little red fairy, was busy while I rested, 

 repairing the damage done to my anat- 

 omy, replacing w r ith new, good building 

 material the injured and wasted tissues. 



"Pete, old fellow," I presently said, 

 "who fixed me up like this? Who 

 brought me to camp ? Who killed that 

 bear? Who saved our lives?" 



"The wild hunter," replied Pete 

 gravely. "He bathed my head with 

 some sort of good-smelling stuff, gave 

 me a drink of the finest liquor I ever 

 tasted, and, though I am as heavy as 

 a dead priest, toted me to camp ; he 

 'lowed that I was all sort of shuk up 

 and a little hazy ; he fixed my blanket ; 

 then he fotched you in on his shoulders, 

 just as if you was a dead antelope, fixed 

 you up with bandages torn from the 

 handkerchiefs in your pocket, gave you 

 a drink, which you didn't seem to ap- 

 preciate, but just swallowed like you 

 were asleep, then he laid you out. I 

 had my eye peeled on him, but he never 

 said a word ; and when we was both 

 all comfortable, he pulled out a long 

 cigar, sot down by the fire, and was 

 smoking thar, with his bird and his 

 wolves around him, when I went to 

 sleep. 



"He cut his bullets out, as he alius 

 does," muttered Pete a little while later. 



"Who cut what bullets?" I asked. 



"Whomsoever cud I mean but the 

 wild hunter, and wha's tha' been any 

 bullets lately, but in tha' b'ar?" queried 



