“Whenever your mouth is still you can hear the children who are dying today⁠—but you don’t care. All you can think of is yourself. You claim Lake and the others were cowards⁠—but you didn’t dare hunt with them. You keep insinuating that they’re cheating us and eating more than we are⁠—but your belly is the only one that has any fat left on it⁠—”

She never completed the sentence. Bemmon’s face turned livid in sudden, wild fury and he struck her, knocking her against the rock wall so hard that she slumped unconscious to the ground.

“She’s a liar!” he panted, glaring at the others. “She’s a rotten liar and anybody who repeats what she said will get what she got!”

When Lake learned of what had happened he did not send for Bemmon at once. He wondered why Bemmon’s reaction had been so quick and violent and there seemed to be only one answer:

Bemmon’s belly was still a little fat. There could be but one way he could have kept it so.