"Would you rather have your victuals raw?" she demanded finally, desperate at his silence. "I reckon I'd better learn your ruthers in the matter." "I'd rather have 'em raw as to have 'em cooked the way you mostly get 'em," came the swift reply in a perfectly colorless tone. "I ain't particularly petted on having my victuals burnt on one side and raw on the other, and I'd rather do my own seasoning--some folks salt things till the devil himself couldn't eat 'em, or leave the salt out, and then wonder that there's complaints." Her day of brooding had come to a crisis of choking rage. Callista sat up on the edge of the bed and put her thick hair back from her face. "I cook what I'm provided," she said in a cold, [197] even voice. "That is, I cook it when I'm supplied with wood. And I fix your meals the best I know how; but it would take one of the sort you named just then to cook without fire." She had expected that he would go out in the dark and cut firewood for her. As for the matches, starting a flame without them was an easy trick for a hunter like Lance. She remembered with a sudden strange pang his once showing her how he could prepare his pile of shredded tinder, fire a blank charge into it, and have a blaze promptly. She heard him fumbling for something on the wall--his gun, of course. But the next instant there came the whine of the banjo; it hummed softly as it struck against the lintel. That was what he was getting--not the gun to light a fire--he was leaving her alone in the cabin! She guessed that he was going over to Derf's to play for a dance; and for a strenuous moment she was near to springing after him and begging him to stay with her. But habit prevailed. She huddled, shivering, under her covers and went back to the sullen canker of her own wrongs. She might have had the pick of the countryside, and she had taken up with Lance Cleaverage. She had married him when and how he said--that was where she made her mistake. She should have told him then--she should have--but, in the midst of all this rush of accusation, she knew well that she [198] took Lance when and how she could get him, and at this moment her heart was clamoring to know where he was and what doing.