FLOTSAM AND JETSAM
"Ellis," said Jones, earnestly, as they climbed to the camp and stood
gazing at the whitening ashes of their fire, "the simple life is a state
of mind. I'm in it, now. And--do you know, Ellis, that--I--I could learn
to like it?"
Ellis prodded the back-log, and tossed on some dry sticks.
"Great Heaven!" breathed Jones, "did you ever see such eyes, Ellis?"
"The grey ones? They're very noticeable----"
"I meant--well, let it go at that. Here be two of us have lost a
thousand shillings to-day."
"And the ladies were not in buckram," rejoined Ellis, starting a blaze.
"Jones, can you prepare trout for the pan with the aid of a knife? Here,
rub salt in 'em--and leave all but two in that big tin--dry, mind, then
cover it and sink it in the spring, or something furry will come nosing
and clawing at it. I'll have things ready by the time you're back."
"About our canoes," began Jones. "I've daubed mine with white lead, but
I cut it up badly. Hadn't we better attend to them before the storm
breaks?"
"Get yours into camp. I'll fetch mine; it's cached just below the forks.
This storm may tear things."
A quarter of an hour later two vigorous young men swung into camp,
lowered the canoes from their heads and shoulders, carried the strapped
kits, poles and paddles into the lean-to, and turned the light crafts
bottom up as flanking shelters to headquarters.
"No use fishing; that thunder is spoiling the Caranay," muttered Ellis,
moving about and setting the camp in order. "This is a fine lean-to," he
added; "it's big enough for a regiment."
"I told you I was an architect," said Jones, surveying the open-faced
shanty with pride. "I had nothing else to do, so I spent the time in
making this. I'm a corker on the classic. Shall I take an axe and cut
some wood in the Ionic or Doric style?"
Ellis, squatting among the provisions, busily bringing order out of
chaos, told him what sort of wood to cut; and an hour later, when the
echoing thwacks of the axe ceased and Jones came in loaded with
firewood, the camp was in order; hambones, stale bedding, tin cans, the
heads and spinal processes of trout had been removed, dishes polished,
towels washed and drying, and a pleasant aroma of balsam tips mingled
with the spicy scent of the fire.
"Whew!" said Jones, sniffing; "it smells pleasant now."
"Your camp," observed Ellis, "had all the fragrance of a dog-fox in
March. How heavy the air is. Listen to that thunder! There's the deuce
to pay on the upper waters of the Caranay by this time."
"Do you think we'll get it?"
"Not the rain and wind; the electrical storms usually swing off,
following the Big Oswaya. But we may have a flood." He arose and picked
up his rod. "The thunder has probably blanked me, but if you'll tend
camp I'll try to pick up some fish in a binnikill I know of where the
trout are habituated to the roar of the fork falls. We may need every
fish we can get if the flood proves a bad one."
Jones said it would suit him perfectly to sit still. He curled up close
enough to the fire for comfort as well as æsthetic pleasure, removed his
eyeglasses, fished out a flask of aromatic mosquito ointment, and
solemnly began a facial toilet, in the manner of a comfortable house cat
anointing her countenance with one paw.
"Ellis," he said, blinking up at that young man very amiably, "it would
be agreeable to see a little more of--of Miss Sandys; wouldn't it? And
the other----"
"We could easily do that."
"Eh? How?"
"By engaging an attorney to defend ourselves in court," said Ellis
grimly.
"Pooh! You don't suppose that brown-eyed girl----"
"Yes, I do! _She_ means mischief. If it had rested with the other----"
"You're mistaken," said Jones, warmly. "I am perfectly persuaded that if
I had had half an hour's playful conversation with the brown-eyed
one----"
"You tried playfulness and fell down," observed Ellis, coldly. "If I
could have spoken to Miss Sandys----"
"What! A girl with steel-grey eyes like two poniards? A lot of mercy she
would show us! My dear fellow, trust in the brown eye every time! The
warm, humane, brown eye--the emotional, the melting, the tender
brown----"
"Don't trust it! Didn't she kodak twice? You and I are now in her
Rogues' Gallery. Besides, didn't she take notes on her pad? I never
observed anything humane in brown eyes."
Jones polished his nose with the mosquito salve.
"How do you know what she wanted my picture for?" he asked, annoyed.
"Perhaps she means to keep it for herself--if that grey-eyed one lets
her alone----"
"Let the grey-eyed one alone yourself," retorted Ellis, warmly.
"You'd better, too. Any expert in human character can tell you which of
those girls means mischief."
"If you think you're an expert--" began Ellis, irritated, then stopped
short. Jones followed his eyes.
"Look at that stream," said Ellis, dropping his rod against the lean-to.
"There's been a cloudburst in the mountains. There's no rain here, but
_look_ at that stream! Yellow and bank-full! Hark! Hear the falls. I
have an idea the woods will be awash below us in an hour."
They descended to the ledge which an hour ago had overhung the stream.
Now the water was level with it, lapping over it, rising perceptibly in
the few seconds they stood there. Alders and willows along the banks,
almost covered, staggered in the discolored water; drift of all sorts
came tumbling past, rotten branches, piles of brush afloat, ferns and
shrubs uprooted; the torrent was thick with flakes of bark and forest
mould and green-leaved twigs torn from the stream-side.
From the lower reaches a deer came galloping toward the ridges; a fox
stole furtively into the open, hesitated, and slunk off up the valley.
And now the shallow gorge began to roar under the rising flood; tumbling
castles of piled-up foam whirled into view; the amber waves washed
through the fringing beech growth, slopping into hollows, setting the
dead leaves afloat. A sucking sound filled the woods; millions of tiny
bubbles purred in the shallow overflow; here and there dead branches
stirred, swung and floated.
"Our camp is going to be an island pretty soon," observed Ellis; "just
look at----"
But Jones caught him by the arm. "_What_ is that?" he demanded shakily.
"Are there things like that in these woods?"
At the same instant Ellis caught sight of something in midstream bearing
down on them in a smother of foam--an enormous lizard-like creature
floundering throat-deep in the flood.
"What is it, Ellis? Look! It's got a tail ten feet long! Great Heaven,
look at it!"
"I see it," said Ellis, hoarsely. "I never saw such a thing----"
"It's opening its jaws!" gasped Jones.
Ellis, a trifle white around the cheekbones, stared in frozen silence at
the fearsome creature as it swept down on them. A crested wave rolled
it over; four fearsome claws waved in the air; then the creature righted
itself and swung in toward the bank.
"Upon my word!" stammered Ellis; "it's part of their theatrical
property. Lord! how real it looked out yonder. I knew it couldn't be
alive, but--Jones, see how my hands are shaking. Would you believe a man
could be rattled like that?"
"Believe it? I should say I could! Look at the thing wabbling there in
the shallows as though it were trying to move its flippers! _Look_ at
it, Ellis; see how it seems to wriggle and paddle----"
The words froze on his lips; the immense creature was moving; the scaled
claws churned the shallows; a spasm shook the head; the jaws gaped.
"Help!" said a very sweet and frightened voice.
Ellis got hold of one claw, Jones the other, almost before they
comprehended--certainly before, deep in the scaly creature's maw, they
discovered the frightened but lovely features of the grey-eyed girl who
had snap-shot them.
"Please pull," she said; "I can't swim in _this_!"
Almost hysterically they soothed her as they tugged and steered the
thing into the flooded forest.
"Mr. Ellis--please--_please_ don't pull quite so hard," she called out.
"Oh, did I hurt you?" he cried so tenderly that, even in the shock of
emotions, Jones was ashamed of him.
"No, you don't hurt me, Mr. Ellis; I'm all right inside here, but
I--I--you must not pull this papier-mâché dragon to pieces----"
"What do I care for the dragon if you are in danger?" cried Ellis,
excitedly.
But it was a frightened and vexed voice that answered almost tearfully:
"If you pull too hard on the pasteboard legs something dreadful may
happen. I--this dragon is--is about the only clothing I have on!"
Ellis dropped the flipper, seized it again, and gazed into the scared
eyes of Jones.
"For Heaven's sake, go easy," he hissed, "or the thing will come apart!"
Jones, in a cold perspiration, stood knee-deep in the flood, not daring
to touch the flipper again.
"You help here," he whispered, hoarsely. "If she stands up, now, you can
support her to camp, can't you?"
Ellis bent over and looked into the gaping jaws of Fafnir the Dragon.
"Miss Sandys," he said seriously, "do you think you could get on your
hind--on your feet?"
The legs of the monster splashed, groping for the bottom; Ellis passed
his arm around the scaly body; Fafnir arose, rather wabbly, and took
one dripping step forward.
[Illustration: "Beyond, rocking wildly in a gilded boat, sat two people
and a placid swan."]
"I fancy we can manage it now, Jones," said Ellis, cheerfully, turning
around; but Jones did not answer; he was running away, dashing and
splashing down the flooded forest. Beyond, rocking wildly in a gilded
boat, sat two people and a placid swan.
"Good Lord!" faltered Ellis, as the dragon turned with a little shriek.
"Is the whole Summer School being washed away?"
"No," she said excitedly, "but the dam broke. Helen and Professor Rawson
tried to save the swan-boat--we were giving tableaux from "Lohengrin"
and "The Rheingold"--and--oh! oh! oh! such a torrent came! Helen--there
she is in armour--Helen tried to paddle the boat, but the swans pulled
the other way, and they flapped so wildly that Helen called for help.
Then one of the Rhine-maidens--Professor Rawson--waded in and got
aboard, but the paddle broke and they were adrift. Then one of those
horrid swans got loose, and everybody screamed, and the water rose
higher and higher, and nobody helped anybody, so, so--as I swim well, I
jumped in without waiting to undress--you see I had been acting the
dragon, Fafnir, and I went in just as I was; but the papier-mâché dragon
kept turning turtle with me, and first I knew I was being spun around
like a top."
There was a silence; they stood watching Jones scrambling after the
swan-boat, which had come to grief in shallow water. Professor Rawson,
the Rhine-maiden, gave one raucous and perfunctory shriek as Jones
floundered alongside--for the garb of the normal Rhine-daughter is
scanty, and Professor Rawson's costume, as well as her maidenly
physique, was almost anything except redundant.
As for Helen, sometime known as brown-eyes, she rose to her slim height,
all glittering in tin armour, and gave Jones a smile of heavenly
gratitude that shot him through and through his Norfolk jacket.
"Don't look!" said Professor Rawson, in a voice which, between the
emotions of recent terror and present bashfulness, had dwindled to a
squeak. "Don't look; I'm going to jump." And jump she did, taking to the
water with a trifle less grace than the ordinary Rhine-maiden.
There was a spattering splash, a smothered squawk which may have been
emitted by the swan, and the next moment Professor Rawson was churning
toward dry land, her wreath of artificial seaweed over one eye, her
spectacles glittering amid her dank tresses.
Jones looked up at brown-eyes balancing in the bow of the painted boat.
"I can get you ashore quite dry--if you don't mind," he said.
She considered the water; she considered Jones; she looked carefully at
the wallowing Rhine-daughter.
"Are you sure you can?" she asked.
"Perfectly certain," breathed Jones.
"I am rather heavy----"
The infatuated man laughed.
"Well, then, I'll carry the swan," she said calmly; and, seizing that
dignified and astonished bird, she walked demurely off the prow of the
gaudy boat into the arms of Jones.
To Ellis and the grey-eyed dragon, and to Professor Rawson, who had
crawled to a dry spot on the ridge, there was a dreadful fascination in
watching that swaying pyramid of Jones, Lohengrin, and swan tottering
landward, knee-deep through the flood. The pyramid swayed dangerously at
times; but the girl in the tin armour clasped Jones around the neck and
clung to the off leg of the swan, and Jones staggered on, half-strangled
by the arm and buffeted by the flapping bird, until his oozing shoes
struck dry land.
"Hurrah!" cried Ellis, his enthusiasm breaking out after an agonizing
moment of suspense; and Miss Sandys, forgetting her plight, waved her
lizard claws and hailed rescuer and rescued with a clear-voiced cheer as
they came up excited and breathless, hustling before them the outraged
swan, who waddled furiously forward, craning its neck and snapping.
"_What is that?_" muttered Jones aside to Ellis as the dragon and
Lohengrin embraced hysterically. He glanced toward the Rhine-maiden, who
was hiding behind a tree.
"Rhine wine with the cork pulled," replied Ellis, gravely. "Go up to
camp and get her your poncho. I'll do what I can to make things
comfortable in camp."
The girl in armour was saying, "You poor, brave dear! How perfectly
splendid it was of you to plunge into the flood with all that pasteboard
dragon-skin tied to you--like Horatius at the bridge. Molly, I'm simply
overcome at your bravery!"
And all the while she was saying this, Molly Sandys was saying: "Helen,
how did you ever dare to try to save the boat, with those horrid swans
flapping and nipping at you every second! It was the most courageous
thing I ever heard of, and I simply revere you, Helen Gay!"
Jones, returning from camp with his poncho, said: "There's a jolly fire
in camp and plenty of provisions;" and sidled toward the tree behind
which Professor Rawson was attempting to prevent several yards of
cheese cloth from adhering too closely to her outline.
"Go away!" said that spinster, severely, peering out at him with a
visage terminating in a length of swan-like neck which might have been
attractive if feathered.
"I'm only bringing you a poncho," said Jones, blushing.
Ellis heard a smothered giggle behind him, but when he turned Molly
Sandys had shrunk into her dragon-skin, and Helen Gay had lowered the
vizor of her helmet.
"I think we had better go to the camp-fire," he said gravely. "It's only
a step."
"We think so, too," they said. "Thank you for asking us, Mr. Ellis."
So Ellis led the way; after him slopped the dragon, its scaled tail
dragging sticks and dead leaves in its wake; next waddled the swan,
perforce, prodded forward by the brown-eyed maid in her tin armor.
Professor Rawson, mercifully disguised in a rubber poncho, under which
her thin shins twinkled, came in the rear, gallantly conducted by Jones
in oozing shoes.
[Illustration]