Augusta was hanging a pot of potatoes over the fire from a long crooked iron hook that was sunk into the ground. The big man had gone down to the brook where, it appeared, he had a string of live fish in captivity. "Do you think we are wise?" said Jimmie cautiously. "We can't tell, you know. People might be looking for him. And suppose he had taken things and brought them here. And if we were found here," he worried on, "why, we simply haven't any credentials at all. And we're a deuce of a long ways from anybody that knows us. It might be very mean for you--these country sheriffs, you know, they might bundle the whole of us off to the nearest county jail, wherever it is." "I don't care," said Augusta warmly, flushing over the fire. "Just look at the man. I _know_ he didn't do anything really wrong." "That's the woman of it," Jimmie argued meanly, "just because a man looks like a well preserved and benevolent Greek god and talks with a soft brogue, then the law of the land must be wrong." "Well, the law _is_ wrong lots of times," Augusta answered evenly. And Jimmie wondered whether women, with all the terrible discipline which nature and human society put upon them, were not essentially more lawless than men; or was it that they had gotten a larger share of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge and actually did know good from evil. He had no time for any remarks on the subject, for the big man was coming back from the brook carrying a big fish, cleaned and split, on a toaster that was fashioned out of two bent pieces of wire. "If ye'll just rub in the salt," he said, holding out the fish to Augusta. "It'll not need a deal of it for we'll lash the bacon in with the fish." "Our table is very little," said Augusta, regarding her folding table as she took the salt from it. "But you and Jimmie can sit and I'll wait on you like an Indian woman." For some reason Augusta was supremely happy. It was not merely the exciting effect of the feeling that she was flouting the law. And she was deeply touched by the big man's plight as she understood it. But there was about her to-night what Jimmie sometimes called a mist of happiness, as though she trod on dew rays and moved in a cloud. "Faith'n I know a trick worth two o' that," said the big man positively. "If you'll just turn the fish against the fire, mam--not over the fire, mind you, but just against it--I'll find a table." He disappeared into the darkness of the little house, and presently came out carrying a good sized table. "McQuade's a queer duck enough. But I'll say for him that he does keep his things clean."