As his strength was fast returning, he cut up and dressed the cow, an achievement in which a long experience in hunting had made him an expert.

He hung the quarters in a dense thicket of tall bushes where vultures or buzzards could not get at them, and took some of the tenderest steaks home with him.
He broiled the steaks over a fine bed of coals in front of the house and ate them with bread that he baked himself from the ship's flour.

He enjoyed his dinner and he was devoutly grateful for his escape.

But how much pleasanter it would have been if Willet and Tayoga, those faithful comrades of many perils, were there with him to share it! He wondered what they were doing.

Doubtless they had hunted for him long, and they had suspected and sought to trace Garay, but the cunning spy doubtless had fled from Albany immediately after his capture.