Yet I was indeed glad that no sign of my dismay had escaped me, for
the cow-persons, Hank and Buck, as I discovered, had given unusual
care to the repast on my account, and I should not have liked to seem
unappreciative. Quite by accident I overheard the honest fellows
quarrelling about an oversight: they had, it seemed, left the
finger-bowls behind; each was bitterly blaming the other for this,
seeming to feel that the meal could not go forward. I had not to be
told that they would not ordinarily carry finger-bowls for their own
use, and that the forgotten utensils must have been meant solely for
my comfort. Accordingly, when the quarrel was at its highest I broke
in upon it, protesting that the oversight was of no consequence, and
that I was quite prepared to roughen it with them in the best of good
fellowship. They were unable to conceal their chagrin at my having
overheard them, and slunk off abashed to the cooking-fire. It was
plain that under their repellent exteriors they concealed veins of the
finest chivalry, and I took pains during the remainder of the evening
to put them at their ease, asking them many questions about their wild
life.
Of the dangers of the jungle by which we were surrounded the most
formidable, it seemed, was not the grizzly bear, of which I had read,
but an animal quaintly called the "high-behind," which lurks about
camping-places such as ours and is often known to attack man in its
search for tinned milk of which it is inordinately fond.
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