"I guess it won't be any trouble--but I don't mind cooking. You--you better set still and rest," murmured Charming Billy, quite red. Of course, she would want supper--and there were dried apricots, and a very little tapioca! He felt viciously that he could kill the Pilgrim and be glad. The Pilgrim was already two days late with the supplies he had been sent after because he was not to be trusted with the duties pertaining to a line-camp--and Billy had not the wide charity that could conjure excuses for the delinquent. "I'll let you wash the dishes," promised Miss Bridger generously. "But I'll cook the supper--really, I want to, you know. I won't say I'm not hungry, because I am. This Western air does give one _such_ an appetite, doesn't it? And then I walked miles, it seems to me; so that ought to be an excuse, oughtn't it? Now, if you'll show me where the coffee is--" She had risen and was looking at him expectantly, with a half smile that seemed to invite one to comradeship. Charming Billy looked at her helplessly, and turned a shade less brown. "The--there isn't any," he stammered guiltily. "The Pilgrim--I mean Walland--Fred Walland--" "It doesn't matter in the least," Miss Bridger assured him hastily. "One can't keep everything in the house all the time, so far from any town. We're often out of things, at home. Last week, only, I upset the vanilla bottle, and then we were completely out of vanilla till just yesterday." She smiled again confidingly, and Billy tried to seem very sympathetic--though of a truth, to be out of vanilla did not at that moment seem to him a serious catastrophe. "And really, I like tea better, you know. I only said coffee because father told me cowboys drink it a great deal. Tea is so much quicker and easier to make." Billy dug his nails into his palms. "There--Miss Bridger," he blurted desperately, "I've got to tell yuh--there isn't a thing in the shack except some dried apricots--and maybe a spoonful or two of tapioca. The Pilgrim--" He stopped to search his brain for words applicable to the Pilgrim and still mild enough for the ears of a lady. "Well, never mind. We can rough it--it will be lots of fun!" the girl laughed so readily as almost to deceive Billy, standing there in his misery. That a woman should come to him for help, and he not even able to give her food, was almost unbearable. It were well for the Pilgrim that Charming Billy Boyle could not at that moment lay hands upon him. "It will be fun," she laughed again in his face. "If the--the grubstake is down to a whisper (that's the way you say it, isn't it?) there will be all the more credit coming to the cook when you see all the things she can do with dried apricots and tapioca. May I rummage?"