Page:Ballinger Price--The Happy Venture.djvu/62

48 embers. They turned them gingerly from time to time with two sticks, and laughed a great deal. The laughter echoed about in the empty stillness of the house.

Ken's knife was of the massive and useful sort that contains a whole array of formidable tools. These included a can-opener, which now did duty on the smoked tins. It had been previously used to punch holes in the tops of the cans before they went among the coals—"for we don't want the blessed things blowing up," Ken had said. Nothing at all was the matter with the contents of the cans, however, in spite of the strange process of cookery. The Sturgises ate peas and baked beans on chunks of unbuttered bread (cut with another part of Ken's knife) and decided that nothing had ever tasted quite so good.

"No dish-washing, at any rate," said Ken; "we've eaten our dishes."

Kirk chose to find this very entertaining, and consumed another "bread-plate," as he termed it, on the spot.

The cooking being finished, more gnarly apple-wood was put on the fire, and the black, awkward shadows of three figures leaped out