Incidentally he strove to impart to Thompson certain
rudimentary principles in the cooking of simple food. He illustrated the
method of mixing a batch of baking-powder bread, and how to parboil salt
pork before cooking, explained to him the otherwise mysterious
expansion of rice and beans and dried apples in boiling water, all of
which Breyette was shrewd enough to realize that Thompson knew nothing
about. He had a ready ear for instructions but a poor understanding of
these matters. So Mike reiterated out of his experience of camp cooking,
and Thompson tried to remember.
Meanwhile, MacDonald, who had vanished into the woods with a rifle in
his hand at daybreak, came back about noon with a deer's carcass slung
on his sturdy back. This, after it was skinned, the two breeds cut into
pieces the thickness of a man's wrist and as long as they could make
them, rubbed well with salt and hung on a stretched line in the sun. The
purpose and preparation of "jerky" was duly elucidated to Thompson;
rather profitless explanation, for he had no rifle, nor any knowledge
whatever in the use of firearms.
"Bagosh, dat man Ah'm wonder w'ere hees raise," Mike said to his partner
once when Thompson was out of earshot.
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