"Why are you all alone in the village?" I asked. "Is everybody
dead? Has there been a great sickness? Are you alone left of the
living?"
Old Ebbits shook his head, saying: "Nay, there has been no great
sickness. The village has gone away to hunt meat. We be too old,
our legs are not strong, nor can our backs carry the burdens of
camp and trail. Wherefore we remain here and wonder when the young
men will return with meat."
"What if the young men do return with meat?" Zilla demanded
harshly.
"They may return with much meat," he quavered hopefully.
"Even so, with much meat," she continued, more harshly than before.
"But of what worth to you and me? A few bones to gnaw in our
toothless old age. But the back-fat, the kidneys, and the tongues
- these shall go into other mouths than thine and mine, old man."
Ebbits nodded his head and wept silently.
"There be no one to hunt meat for us," she cried, turning fiercely
upon me.
There was accusation in her manner, and I shrugged my shoulders in
token that I was not guilty of the unknown crime imputed to me.
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