They sat down with tremendous appetites to that best of meals, a hunter's supper. There was tinned soup, which they drank out of mugs, curried guinea–fowl which Alastair had shot, venison–steaks stewed with onions, and a species of tinned plum–pudding which was the joy of Considine's heart. Coffee and peach brandy completed the courses, and then the three got into sleeping–bags, had more logs put on the fire, lit their pipes, and prepared for the slow talk which merges gradually in slumber.
Hugh snuggled into his kaross with a profound sense of comfort. He felt warm, satisfied, and indomitably cheerful. Never had his pipe seemed sweeter; never had he felt his mind more serene or his body more instinct with life. The wide glade was lit up by the fire, and the high branches made a kind of e
