David Milton McGowan

3 When she had the strips of bannock dough wrapped around sticks and propped over the fire, she began to slice slabs of meat from the venison haunch hanging from a limb on the edge of camp. As she was doing this, Squeak rose and went to the pack from which he drew another bottle of the dark, Hudson's Bay Trade Rum. Rolley continued to sip on his, but Squeak took the top quarter of his fresh bottle in one long drink. When the meal was finished roasting, Janet said nothing but took one of the bannock-wrapped sticks, another holding a slice of meat, and moved away from the fire. She hunkered down across the fire from Rolley and Squeak. "I take it we can all dig in?" Rolley said, carefully leaning his bottle against the log before rising and moving to the fire. Before he could get a portion of the meal for himself, Gabe took his portion and returned to where he had been standing, back from the fire and to Janet's right. Squeak refused to move even after Ro...

Janet almost smiled. Perhaps there was a way. The fire was still burning, though down to a few coals when they rode up to the rustler’s camp. Gabe picked her up by the waist, leaned over and set her on the ground. "I'll see to the horses," he said. Rolley and Squeak dismounted and handed him their reins. Gabe rode off into the brush. "Why, you must be real hungry, Ma'am," Squeak said. "We was just about to make up some bannock an' we got some deer left that Gabe shot. You just set over there on that log an' I'll whip it up." He was all nervous gestures and toothless grin. Inwardly, Janet shuddered over the filth of the man, but she smiled back and said, "That would be very nice." "Squeak, go an' sit down an' shut up," Rolley said gruffly. "You're makin' a fool o' yerself. This little filly's gonna be our cook from now on." Sulking, Squeak dropped down onto the...

Chapter 2 Something pulled at Janet and she came awake with a start. A stiff, dead branch caught her hat as she moved, knocking it from her head. "Well Billy-be-damn if it ain't a woman," a strange, but at the same time familiar voice said. Janet looked up to see a scrawny little man with bulging eyes and a scraggly beard grinning toothlessly at her as he held up the spruce branches. Behind him she could see that a new day had arrived and, looking into her den stood a square, better-dressed but equally dirty man holding her rifle. It was their pulling the rifle from her arms that had awakened her. The second man turned his gaze off to the side and spit tobacco juice. "Better come have a look at this, Gabe." He turned back to smile at Janet as a third man rode his horse over and leaned down to look at her. This third man's clothes were also dirty, but it appeared he had both shaved and washed in the not too distant past. The second man ges...

At the barn she put a bridle on Ben. He was fifteen years old, a horse Mat had raised, trained, and brought with him from his father's D-bar-K. He was the easiest to handle of the four horses Janet had available to her – an important consideration, since she did not have a saddle. At fifteen hundred pounds he was also the smallest of the four and the easiest for a twenty-year-old, one-hundred-and-twenty-pound woman to mount and sit on. As she turned to leave the barn, Janet thought about how unpredictable the spring weather could be and grabbed a saddle blanket - an old wool blanket folded into a square - and put it on Ben. She certainly didn't need anything to improve the comfort of Ben's wide back, but if the weather should turn, the blanket might help to keep her warm until she could make it home. At the house she told her mother that she would be gone looking for the steers. Her mother was flabbergasted. "You can't leave us here by ourselves!" ...

And so here is episode 2 of Janet's attempt to find The Yearlings. She decided it would be best to wait for daylight. The temperature was close to freezing, but her long coat and blanket should keep her warm enough to survive. The slight southwest wind still blew and the sky was overcast so perhaps the temperature would not drop too much during the night. Spring had been a long drawn-out affair, though pleasant and not too cold, and it was long past time for warmer weather. She saw a large dark shape uphill to her right and approached it. It was a big spruce, its branches sweeping the snow. She crawled under and next to the trunk. The needles under the tree were dry, and the tree itself protected her from the wind. Returning to the snow she took some in her mouth, sucking on it while she washed her face and hands. Removing the bandana from around her ears she used it to dry her self, then crawled back into her haven. She leaned the rifle against a limb close to hand, wrapped hersel...