DOG EATER
"A man that ain't never been hungry can't tell nobody what's good to eat," says Rawhide Rawlins. "I eat raw sow bosom and frozen biscuit when it tasted like a Christmas dinner.
"Bill Gurd tells me he's caught one time. He's been ridin' since daybreak and ain't had a bite. It's plumb dark when he hits a breed's camp. This old breed shakes hands and tells Bill he's welcome, so after strippin' his saddle and hobblin' his hoss, he steps into the shack. Being wolf hungry, he notices the old woman's cooking bannocks at the mud fire. Tired and hungry like Bill is, the warmth and the smell of grub makes this cottonwood shack, that ain't much more than a windbreak, look like a palace.
"Tain't long till the old woman hands him a tin plate loaded with stew and bannocks, with hot tea for a chaser. He don't know what kind of meat it is but he's too much of a gentleman to ask. So he don't look a gift hoss in the mouth. After he fills up, while he's smokin', the old man spreads down some blankets and Bill beds down.
"Next mornin' he gets the same for breakfast. Not being so hungry, he's more curious, but don't ask no questions. On the way out to catch his hoss he gets an answer. A little ways from the cabin, he passes a fresh dog hide pegged down on the ground. It's like seeing the hole-card it's no gamble what that stew was made of, but it was good and Bill held it.
"I knowed another fellow one time that was called Dog Eatin' Jack. I never knowed how he got his name that's hung to him, till I camp with him. This old boy is a prospector and goes gopherin' 'round the hills, hopin' he'll find something.
"I'm huntin' hosses one spring and ain't found nothing but tracks. I'm up on the Lodgepole in the foothills; it's sundown and my hoss has went lame. We're limping along slow when I sight a couple of hobbled cayuses in a beaver meadow. One of these hosses is wearing a Diamond G iron, the other's a Quarter-Circle-Block hoss. They're both old cow ponies. I soon locate their owner's camp it's a lean-to in the edge of the timber.
"While I'm lookin' over the layout, here comes the owner. It's the Dog Eater. After we shake hands I unsaddle and stake out my tired hoss. When we're filled up on the best he's got which is beans, bacon, and frying pan bread, which is good filling for hungry men we're sittin' smokin', and it's then I ask him if he ever lived with Injuns.
"You're thinkin',' says he, 'about my name. It does sound like Injun, but they don't hang it on me. It happens about ten winters ago. I'm 'way back in the Diamond range; I've throwed my hosses about ten mile out in the foothills where there's good feed and less snow. I build a lean-to, a good one, and me and my dog settles down. There's some beaver here and I got out a line of traps and figger on winterin' here. Ain't got much grub, but there's lots of game in the hills and my old needle gun will get what the traps won't.
"Snow comes early and lots of it. About three days after the storm I step on a loose boulder and sprain my ankle. This puts me plumb out; I can't more than keep my fire alive. All the time I'm running short of grub. I eat a couple of skinned beaver I'd throwed away one day. My old dog brings in a snowshoe rabbit to camp and maybe you don't think he's welcome. I cut in two with him but manlike, I give him the front end. That's the last we got.
"Old Friendship that's the dog's name goes out every day, but he don't get nothing and I know he ain't cheating he's too holler in the flanks. After about four days of living on thoughts, Friendship starts watchin' like he's afraid. He thinks maybe I'll put him in the pot, but he sizes me up wrong. If I'd do that, I hope I choke to death.
"The sixth day I'm sizin' him up. He's laying near the fire. He's a hound with a long meaty tail. Says I to myself, 'Oxtail soup! What's the matter with dog tail?' He don't use it for nothing but sign talk, but it's like cutting the hands off a dummy. But the eighth day, with hunger and pain in my ankle, I plumb locoed and I can't get that dog's tail out of my mind. So, a little before noon I slip up on him, while he's sleeping, with the ax. In a second it's all over, Friendship goes yelpin' into the woods and I am sobbin' like a kid, with his tail in my hand."
"The water is already boiling in the pot, an' as soon as I singe the hair off it's in the pot. I turned a couple of flour sacks inside out and dropped them in and there's enough flour to thicken the soup. It's about dark. I fill up, and if it weren't for thinkin' it would have been good. I could have eat it all but I held out over half for Friendship, in case he come back.
"It must be midnight when he pushes into the blankets with me. I take him in my arms. He's as cold as a dead snake, and while I'm holdin' him tight I'm crying like a baby. After he warms up a little, I get up and throw some wood on the fire and call Friendship to the pot. He eats every bit of it. He don't seem to recognize it. If he does, being a dog, he forgives.
"We go back to the blankets. It's just breaking day when he slides out, whinin' and sniffin' the air with his ears cocked and his bloody stub wobblin'. I look the way he's pointin', and not twenty-five yards from the lean-to stands a big elk. There's a fine snow fallin'; the wind's right for us. I ain't a second gettin' my old needle gun, but I'm playin' safe I'm coming Injun on him. I use my ram-rod for a rest. When old needle speaks, the bull turns over his neck's broken. 'Tain't long till we both get to that bull and we're both eatin' raw, warm liver. I've seen Injuns do this but I never thought I was that much wolf, but it was sure good that morning.
"He's a big seven-point bull old and pretty tough, but me and Friendship was looking for quantity, not quality, and we got it. That meat lasted till we got out.'
"What became of Friendship?' says I.
"He died two years ago,' says Jack. 'But he died fat."
