"
"All right," Dick replied.
We walked perhaps a half-mile more to the westward before we discovered
what we wanted, stopping from time to time to discuss the merits of
this or that place. Billy and I were feeling pretty good. After such a
week Kawagama was a tonic. Finally we agreed.
"This'll do," said we.
"Thank God!" said Dick unexpectedly, and dropped his pack to the ground
with a thud, and sat on it.
I looked at him closely. Then I undid my own pack. "Billy," said I,
"start in on grub. Never mind the tent just now."
"A' right," grinned Billy. He had been making his own observations.
"Dick," said I, "let's go down and sit on the rock over the water. We
might fish a little."
"All right," Dick replied.
He stumbled dully after me to the shore.
"Dick," I continued, "you're a kid, and you have high principles, and
your mother wouldn't like it, but I'm going to prescribe for you, and
I'm going to insist on your following the prescription. This flask does
not contain fly-dope--that's in the other flask--it contains whisky. I
have had it in my pack since we started, and it has not been opened. I
don't believe in whisky in the woods; not because I am temperance, but
because a man can't travel on it. But here is where you break your
heaven-born principles. Drink."
Dick hesitated, then he drank. By the time grub was ready his vitality
had come to normal, and so he was able to digest his food and get some
good out of it; otherwise he could not have done so.
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