The rear of the drive had passed, leaving in its wake the blackened
circle of the wangan fire, a few empty tin cans, one or two broken
pike-poles, an old pair of shoes with calks worn to blunt and useless
stubs, discarded and gloomy socks, and a wrinkled and tattered oilskin;
an agglomeration eloquent of the haste and waste of the drive, which was
worming its tedious way through the deadwater of the thoroughfare some
twelve miles below.
Walter Bascomb, thumbs in his belt, sauntered down to the river with
David and stood idly looking at the pool below the dam. "I've just had
breakfast, but that trout makes me hungry," he said, pointing to a
rippling circle that widened and smoothed out in the breadth of the
brown water.
"Hungry?" said David.
"Not to eat 'em, but to catch 'em. Let's go fishing, Davy. Now that
Livy's gone and the committee has fled, loaded to the scuppers with
asbestos samples and Livy's pow-wow (had to laugh when he told 'em there
was enough Salamander's wool in sight to ballast a four-track road from
here to Ungava), it's about time we had a little fun. Taking a lot of
high-brows fishing isn't fun, but that was a brilliant idea of yours,
that fishing-party. Kept 'em happy. Asbestos! Huh! They spent just one
day crawling over the rocks and looking wise while Livy mesmerized 'em,
and four days catching trout. But that's always the way. Take an
'investigating committee' into the woods and let some one say 'fish' and
it's all off except the sunburn. I've got a cramp in my intellect
playing bridge and another in my elbow from pulling corks. _I_ didn't
have time to fish, and now I'm going to."
"All right, Walt. We'll take a day off. You seem to be in Swickey's good
graces these days--just run up to the camp and ask her to put up a
lunch. It's half-past nine now, and I'll get the rods. Perhaps she'd
like to come, too."
Bascomb raised an eyebrow.
"Why not?" said David. "We're not in Boston."
"Quite correct, Plato. I'll ask her."
David went to his cabin and rummaged among his things. "Walt is getting
on with Swickey, and I'm glad. The old man seems to have taken a fancy
to him, too;--where in the dickens did I put that reel? Oh, here it
is!--and she's changed completely toward him. Talks and jokes--"
"Hello, D-a-v-y!"
He went out and found them waiting on the opposite porch. Bascomb had
the wooden lunch-bucket in his hand, and Swickey was evidently
cautioning him not to knock the cover off, for he pressed it down and
went through a pantomime of carrying it carefully.
"Oh, I say, there you are. Here's the commissary. Got the 'rods and
reels and traces'?"
"Yes," replied David. "How's your tobacco? Mine's about gone."
"Lots of it," answered Bascomb gayly. "Come, let's go a-Juneing, you old
slow-poke. Amaryllis waits without--let's see," he said, looking at
Swickey, "without what?"
"Without a hat--if I'm Amaryllis."
"Well, Ammy'll get her pretty nose sun-burned, sure."
"Don't care," replied Swickey, laughing.
"But I do," said Bascomb. "I like that nose just as it is."
They sauntered along in the June sun, Swickey walking ahead. She seemed
particularly alluring that morning, in the neat flannel waist and trim
skirt reaching to her moccasin-tops. The soft gray of her collar, rolled
back from her full, round throat, enhanced her rich coloring
unobtrusively. As she turned to speak to Bascomb, the naturalness of the
motion, the unstudied grace and poise accompanying it, appealed directly
to his sense of physical beauty.
"By Jove!" he muttered, "it isn't every girl could wear those clothes
and make them becoming. Most girls need the clothes to help, but she
makes 'em what they are--Diana's vestments--"
"Whose vest?" said Swickey, catching part of his soliloquy; "you're
frowning fearfully, and you don't usually."
"Just dreaming, Miss Avery."
"Well, don't, now. This footboard is shaky and you _might_ slip."
"Oh, Davy would fish me out. Wouldn't you, Davy?"
"Of course--fish what?"
"Nothing." Bascomb hastened to change the subject. "How far is it to
this mysterious fish-hatchery that you've discovered, anyway? From what
you say, I should call it an aquarium--that is, if they bite as you say
they do."
"About three miles. Just wait till you've made a few casts. Nanette can
tell you--"
"Nanette won't, but perhaps Swickey will," she said, smiling at Bascomb.
As she paused, he stepped beside her and David took the lead, striding
up the slope at a pace that set Bascomb puffing.
"It's a desecration to call you Swickey," said Bascomb, as he tramped
along, swinging the lunch-bucket. "My! but our Davy's in a hurry--I
don't think I could do it."
"Yes, you can if you point your toes straight ahead when you walk, like
this. You swing your foot sideways too much. Try it."
"Thank you; but I referred to calling you by your nickname."
"Well, I said 'try it,' and you don't usually miss a chance like that."
"Well, Swickey,--there! I feel that's off my mind,--I think you're
simply stunning in that costume."
She laughed happily. "Oh, but you should have seen me when Dave first
came to Lost Farm. I had a blue checkered gingham that was--inches too
short. I was only fourteen then, and I cried because I didn't have a new
dress. Did Dave ever tell you about the book and the 'specs' and the two
new dresses he got for me?"
"Nary a word--the dour laddie--but I was in the shop when he got it--and
I could just worship that gingham."
"Really? Well, that's too bad. I used it for a mop-cloth only the other
day. It's on the mop now."
"_Touche!_" exclaimed Wallie, grinning. "I won't try _that_ again."
"What does '_touche_' mean, Mr. Bascomb?"
"Well, different things. One interpretation is 'touched,' but 'bumped'
isn't stretching it under the circumstances."
"We must hurry!" she exclaimed. "Dave's 'way ahead of us. No, there he
is, waiting."
"Here's where we begin to climb," he said, as they caught up with him.
"Walt, you'd better give me that lunch-bucket. It's pretty stiff going
from now on."
"Whew! If it's any stiffer than this," replied Bascomb, indicating the
main trail, "I'm thinking the van will have to wait for the commissary.
But I'll tote the provender, Davy. I'm good for that much, and you've
got the rods and paddles."
"Here," David gave him one of the paddles, "take this. Hang the bucket
over your shoulder and you won't notice it."
"Castle Garden," said Bascomb, as he settled the bucket on his back.
"Lead on, Macduff!"
There was no visible footpath, simply the trees which David had
"spotted" at intervals on the route, to guide them. A few rods from the
Lost Farm trail the ground rose gradually, becoming rocky and uneven as
they went on, clambering over logs and toiling up gullies, whose rugged,
boulder-strewn banks, thickly timbered with spruce and hemlock, were
replicas in miniature of the wooded hills and rocky valleys they had
left behind, for as they entered deeper and deeper into the mysterious
gloom of half-light that swam listlessly through the fans of spreading
cedars, and flickered through the webs of shadowy firs, their
surroundings grew more and more eerie, till the living sunlight of the
outer world seemed a memory.
Suddenly Bascomb, consistently acting his part as the commissariat, in
that he kept well to the rear, stepped on the moss-covered slant of a
boulder. The soggy moss gave way and he shot down the hillside, the
lunch-bucket catapulting in wide gyrations ahead of him. It brought up
against a tree with a splintering crash.
"Hey, Walt! What are you doing?" shouted David, peering over the edge of
the gully.
"Just went back for the lunch," called Bascomb, as he got up and
gathered the widely dispersed fragments of the "commissary" together.
"I've busted my bifocals," he said, as he scrambled up the slope; "so if
there is any grub missing, you'll know why."
"That's too bad," said Swickey, trying not to laugh. "Where's the
bucket?"
"Here!" said Bascomb, displaying the handle and two staves; "that is,
it's the only part of it that was big enough to recover."
He laid the remnants of the lunch on a rock, and gazed about him with
the peculiar expression of one suddenly deprived of glasses.
"My!" he exclaimed, "but that was a fine biscuit-shower while it lasted.
Talk about manna descending from the skies-- We'll have to catch fish
now, or go hungry."
David stripped a piece of bark from a birch and fashioned it into a rude
box in which the lunch was stowed.
"I'll take it," he said. "We haven't much farther to go."
"Magnanimous, that--we haven't much farther to go. Well, I'm glad some
one had sense enough to make a noise. This 'gloomy woods astray'
business was getting on my nerves. It did me good to hear you laugh,
Swickey."
"I'm glad it did you good," she replied. "But I am sorry you broke your
glasses. You did look funny, though. I saw you start."
"Huh! That wasn't anything. You ought to have seen me finish! But I'd do
it again to hear you laugh like that. There goes Davy through those
bushes like a full-back through a bunch of subs. It's getting lighter,
too. We must be coming to something."
Presently they stood on the shore of the pond, gazing silently at the
unbroken phalanx of green that swept round its placid length and
breadth.
"It looks good, Davy. I can almost smell 'em."
"They're here--lots of them; and big fellows, too. We might as well have
a bite to eat. Can't catch anything now, it's too near noon."
Bascomb surveyed the fragments of the lunch. "By the way, what's the
diminutive for dinner, Davy?--Dinnerette?"
"Oh, there'll be enough. That reminds me of the good dean. Remember him,
Walt? He used to talk about taking a 'perpendicular lunch,' and he
hardly had time to get even that."
"Remember him? Bless his heart. Remember him? Why, there was more
character, real good old earthy character in his old brown hat than in
half the faces of the faculty. Well, I guess!"
Unclouded the noon sun lay miles deep in the centre of the pond,
radiating a dazzling brilliancy. Swickey shaded her eyes with her hand
and gazed across the pond.
"There's a deer!" she whispered, "just under those cedars, in the water.
I wonder what it's doing here this time of day?"
"Can't see it," said Bascomb. "Couldn't if he was sitting on this log
eating lunch with us."
"It isn't a he, it's a doe, and she has a little fawn near her. I can
just see him on the edge of the bank."
David stood up and brushed the crumbs from his clothes. "I'll get the
canoe and paddle up there. It's down the shore a bit."
"I'd give anything to have your eyes," said Bascomb, as David departed.
"But seriously, I'd prefer your hand."
"Is that the way you talk to other girls--in Boston, I mean," replied
Swickey.
"Sometimes. Depends on--well, the girl, you know."
"Or how well you know the girl? Isn't that it, Mr. Bascomb?"
"Not always," said Bascomb uneasily.
Swickey's direct gaze was disconcerting. She had reproved him without a
word of reproof.
"You haven't known me very long, have you?" she asked.
"Long enough to want to know you better," he replied, smiling.
"Dave never says such things," she remarked, half to herself.
"Oh, Davy's a clam--a nice clam," he added hastily, as a storm gathered
in Swickey's eyes. "He can say things when it's necessary, but he
usually does things first, you know, and then it takes dynamite or
delirium to get him to talk of them. Now, look at that! He just
meandered down and dug up that canoe as though it grew there. Never said
a word--"
"Oh, yes, he did. You were looking at me and didn't hear him."
"Well, that lets me out, but I'll bet a strawberry you didn't know he
had a canoe hidden up here."
"You'll have to find a strawberry, a nice, ripe, wild one, for it's my
canoe. Dave and I hid it there, before the--the--accident. We used to
come in here and fish all day. I hope the porcupines haven't chewed it
to pieces."
As they embarked, David spoke to Swickey, recalling a former day's
fishing on the pond. Bascomb noticed her quick change of manner. "She
don't chirrup like that when I talk to her," he thought. They paddled
across the pond and down the opposite shore, enjoying the absolute
silence of the place, broken only by the soft swish and drip of the
paddle-blades. Finally they ceased paddling and sat watching the long
shore-line that swam inverted in the clear depths of a placid
underworld, where the tree-tops disappeared in a fathomless sky beneath
them.
Bascomb accepted cheerfully the limitations imposed by the breaking of
his glasses, and as the canoe shot ahead again he watched Swickey, her
moccasined feet tucked beneath the seat, swinging to the dip and lift of
the paddles, all unconscious that her every movement was a pleasure to
him. Gradually the intensity of noon drew back into the far shadows of
the forest, and a light ripple ran scurrying over the water and vanished
in the distance.
"I smell air," said Bascomb. "Guess the atmosphere is awake again."
"The trout will be jumping in an hour. What time do you think it is?"
said David.
"About two o'clock."
"Just three forty-five."
"What!" Bascomb turned an incredulous face toward David. "Well, we've
all been asleep. It's a caution how the 'forest primeval' can swallow up
a couple of hours without a murmur. Let's try a cast or two."
"There's only one place in this lake--for it is really a lake--where you
can catch trout. That's a secret, but we'll show you where it is," said
Swickey, as she took her rod, drew out a length of line, and reached
forward in the bow and pulled a wisp of grass from a tin can.
"Shades of William Black if it isn't a squirm, and an adult at that!
Won't they take a fly?" asked Bascomb, as Swickey crocheted the hook
through a fat angleworm.
"Sometimes," replied David. "Here's the fly-book."
"Well, catch me assassinating angleworms when I can use one of these
little bedizened bugs," he said, selecting a silver doctor from the
fly-book. "I'm a sportsman. No squirms for mine."
David urged the canoe to a spot touched by the shadows of the
overhanging trees. "Here's the place, Walt. Cast over there, just this
side of those weeds."
Swickey had already made a cast, and she sat watching Bascomb as he
whipped the fly here and there, finally letting it settle a few feet
from where her line cut the water.
"Nothing doing. I'll try over here." The fly soared across the surface
of the pool and dropped gently over the weeds.
"Not at home! Well, we'll call again. Hey! Swickey, look at your rod!"
Swickey's hand was on the reel, and she thrust the butt of the rod
toward the flash of silver and red that shot from the water and swirled
down again with a splash that spattered her arms with flying drops.
"You've got him!" shouted Bascomb. "He's a bird!"
The tense line whipped singing back and forth. The trout whirled up
again and shook himself. Then he shot for deeper water, taking the line
out with a _bur-r-r_ from the spinning reel. Swickey recovered the line
slowly until he was close to the canoe. "He's only pretending," she
said. "He'll fight some more."
Suddenly the line swung toward the boat as the trout made a final play
for freedom. Her quick fingers flashing, Swickey reeled in, stopping the
fish almost under the canoe. "If he gets under, I'll lose him. But he's
getting tired. I can feel it."
With cautious deliberation she worked the fish upward and slowly slid
her hand down the line. With a quick twist she flopped the trout into
the canoe and held him while she extracted the hook.
"Say, he's a whopper! Three pounds if he's a fish. And you did handle
him well."
"Now, kill him," said Swickey. "Dave always does--right away."
Bascomb managed, with directions from Swickey, to break the trout's neck
by putting his thumb under the upper jaw and bending the head back with
a quick snap. Then he reeled in his fly. "I've a favor to ask, Swickey."
She turned toward him, deceived by the gravity of his tone.
"It's a great favor."
"What is it?"
"I can't assume the proper attitude of supplication, owing to the
skittish disposition of this craft, but will you please pass the worms?"
Bascomb quickly duplicated Swickey's success. Sportsmanship was
forgotten in the wild joy of playing and landing big trout that fought
every inch of the way to their final and somewhat ignominious handling
from the water to the canoe. Flies, landing-nets, and fussiness might do
for story-books and catalogues: they were catching fish.
David sat quietly watching them and smoking. Now and then he swung the
canoe back into position as it drifted from the pool. The rocks gleamed
gray-white on the opposite shore as the sun touched the western end of
the woods and the air became refreshingly cooler.
"I don't want to end the fun," he said finally, "but it gets dark soon
after six."
"Why, Dave!" Swickey reeled in her line swiftly, "you haven't caught a
fish!"
"Say, old man, why didn't you shout?"
"I enjoyed every minute of it," replied David, as Swickey caught up her
paddle and swung into stroke with him. "The best part of fishing is just
the opportunity to get away from one's self a while, isn't it?"
"I don't know," replied Bascomb. "I never was much of a dreamer,
anyway."
"Dreamer?" said Swickey, pausing to turn half round. "Dave isn't a
dreamer--are you, Dave?"
"He's apt to be most anything, Swickey. He'll bear watching," said
Bascomb. "You don't know him as I do."
The canoe slid swiftly over the darkening surface of the water till they
came to the place where they had embarked. They stepped ashore and
carried the canoe to the bushes.
"Now we'll have to travel, Wallie. I'm sorry your glasses are broken,
but you keep close to Swickey and we'll make it all right. I'll go
ahead."
"I'm agreeable," said Bascomb, "but I feel like a hen with glass eyes."
He blinked helplessly in the sudden gloom as they entered the forest.
"This way," said Swickey. "It will be all right when you get used to it.
I don't believe it ever gets much darker or lighter in here."
Bascomb stumbled along, doing his best to keep up with David's pace,
that seemed unnecessarily fast, but was in reality much slower than
usual. As they came to a gully which they had crossed on a fallen tree
when they came in, Swickey took Bascomb's hand, and, walking sideways,
led him across carefully.
"It's muskeg down there, so be careful."
"Sure. I wish this log was a mile long. I like muskegs, don't you?"
"No, I don't," said Swickey, releasing his hand as they came to securer
footing.
"Of course it's a matter of taste, Miss Avery. When blindness is bliss,
'tis folly to wear glasses, you know."
"Perhaps it won't be bliss all the way," she replied. "There's another
stretch of swamp--you remember that place just after we left the old
trail?--and it's black mud, and deep each side of the hummocks."
"Yes, I know--that you're absolutely bewitching--although I can't see as
much of you as I should like to in this--wait a minute till I crawl
under this log--neck of the woods."
"We won't be able to keep up if you stop to say such things," replied
Swickey.
"I'm really in no hurry, even if I seem to be. I'm only trying to keep
up with you. There! Hang it! I wish the chap that put that rock there
had a little more sense of proportion. It's altogether too big a chunk
to be lying around loose on the avenue. Hey, Davy, are you there?"
"Hello! Here I am," called David.
"Thought you were lost. This route has got the N. M. & Q. frapped to
suds. I've got a half-nelson on a friendly sapling and Swickey has
deserted me, and it's mud from here to China."
Swickey turned back and laughingly helped Bascomb to the trail again.
"It's your own fault--you will say things whenever I help you."
"That's me," he replied, squeezing her hand. "It's my nature to be
gracious, you know."
"Well, here we are, on the old trail again," she said, as they came up
to David.
They walked along in single file until the trail widened near the river,
across which they could see the lighted windows of the camp.
"Father's home," said Swickey. "I wonder how Jim Cameron is? Pop's been
to see him--Jim has been sick."
"Yes. Your father told me," said David. "Pneumonia, isn't it?"
"Yes; I hope he is better. Pop went down to tell Jim you were here. He
said Jim would get well right away when he heard Mr. Bascomb was with
you."
"There, Davy! Talk about 'angels with healing in their wings.' I feel so
sanctimonious it hurts."
"I wouldn't let it get too painful, Wallie. You know they call Cameron
'Curious Jim'--"
"There you go--blasting my fair illusions in the bud. For an
out-and-out, cold-blooded vivisectionist of ideals, you're the
heavy-weight champion of the scalpel, Davy--and you used to write
poetry. Oh, Pegasus and autos!"
"Poetry!" exclaimed Swickey.
"Steeped in guilt," replied Bascomb, nodding toward David. "He wrote the
blankest kind of blank verse, and the most solemnly salubrious sonnets,
and the loveliest lyrics! Remember that Eugene Fielder you did about the
little boy and his pup?"
"If you had your glasses on, Walt, I'd--" David made a playfully
threatening gesture.
"No, you wouldn't, Davy dear, for I could see you coming--and I'd run.
Besides, you'd have to drop that string of trout first."
After supper David went to his cabin to write some letters. Bascomb
stayed behind to chat with Avery about certain details of the work that
was soon to be begun in the Timberland Valley.
"I reckon," said Avery, seating himself on the edge of the porch, "I
reckon they's no sense in hirin' men fur the job till the new railrud
gets to runnin'. Howcome they's some swampin' to be did--cuttin' a road
from the creek to the sidin', and we kin git Jim, and a couple of men
from Tramworth, and me, and go at it most any time now. Jim's comin'
around all right, and I calc'late to git him to do the teamin' later on.
'Course you and Dave'll boss the job. Now, about one thing: Dave says we
won't make nothin' the fust year. Now, I ain't worryin' about thet. What
I'm thinkin' of is who's goin' to look after things at the other end.
Somebody's got to do the sellin' and take care of the money when it do
git to comin' in, and--"
"Davy and I talked it over," interrupted Bascomb. "He thinks I'd better
be back in town when things get to running here. He will probably speak
to you about it."
"I was jest a-goin' to say suthin' about it m'self, to Dave. Guess I'll
go over and see him now. Comin' over?"
"No," replied Bascomb, leaning back against the side of the cabin. "This
is feathers for me after that tramp to-day. I'll loaf here awhile."
"Thet's right. You kin keep Swickey comp'ny." Avery arose and stretched
himself. "I'm gettin' a mite stiff settin' here."
As the old man strode toward the light of David's doorway, Bascomb
called to Swickey.
"Did you hear that?"
"About Pop getting stiff in the night air?"
"Of course. I don't need night air to make me stiff, though. I bear the
loving marks of the trail all over me. Won't you come out and ease my
departing spirit with a little friendly conversation?"
"If you'll promise not to be silly like you were to-day." She stepped
softly to the door and peered at Bascomb.
"I'll promise."
She came out and sat on the edge of the porch, her back against one of
the posts.
"That's it," said Bascomb. "'Just as you are,' as the picture-man says.
Your profile against the summer night sky is--There, you've spoiled it!
Please turn your head again. Diana and the moon--"
Swickey faced him. "Diana the huntress?"
"Yes, a mythical creature as illusive--as you are. She's very lovely,
too."
"Does she wash dishes and mop floors and--"
"Tantalize mortals?" he interrupted. "Yes, she does, just the same as
she used to forty-seven hundred years ago."
"I'm not going to ask any more questions," said Swickey, "but you can
talk if you want to. I'll listen."
"Thanks awfully. If you'll sit, just as you are, I'll answer all those
questions you're not going to ask--every one of them."
Swickey resumed her position and sat gazing into the gloom. She could
hear the murmur of voices from the doorway opposite. Presently she heard
David say: "That's right, Avery."
"You bet it is, if Davy says so," murmured Bascomb.
Swickey turned toward him again. "Did Dave really write poetry once, Mr.
Bascomb?"
"Really, truly, cross my--pocketbook," he replied, "only it's in my
other clothes."
"He doesn't look like a poet, does he? I mean their pictures."
"No. Davy looks more like a man. Now I'd make a good understudy to
Shakespeare; don't you think so?"
"I don't know," she replied, drawing up her knees and clasping her hands
about them. "You're almost too fat. Besides, I haven't read Shakespeare,
and only one letter that _you_ wrote, and that wasn't poetry."
"You'll forgive me for that, won't you?" said Bascomb.
"Perhaps. I looked up 'Cyclops,' but I didn't tell father what it
meant."
"Well, you're the frankest creature! Great Scott! I feel like a worm."
"I didn't want to make you feel like that," said Swickey. "I just said
what was so."
"And therein lies your bright particular charm, mademoiselle," replied
Bascomb, knocking the ashes from his pipe. "Don't you want to walk down
to the river and hear it gargle?"
"No--not the river--"
"I forgot, Swickey."
She arose and went in, without her usual cheery "good-night."
Bascomb filled his pipe, blinking in the flare of the match. He puffed
meditatively for a while.
"Wallie," he said to himself, "you're a chump. Come out of it. She's not
your kind, my boy." And then, as he realized the snobbishness of his
thought, he added, "No, she's a blamed sight better."
The moon, drifting toward the western tree-tops, flickered on the
moss-edged shingles of the camp; glimmered on the sagging eaves and
crept down till the shadowy lattice of the window-frame lay aslant the
floor of Swickey's bedroom, where she stood, slowly undressing. The coat
David had given her hung in the glow of the moonlight. She took it down
and pressed the soft fabric to her face and throat. "David!" she
whispered. "David!" She rocked to and fro, then suddenly flung the coat
from her. "It burns!" she exclaimed.
She sat on the edge of the bed, gazing wistfully out of the window.
Presently she seemed to see the river; the tangle of logs, the dashing
spray, and then a figure standing erect for a moment to wave to her, and
disappear forever....
She knelt by the bed, pressing her face in the cool white coverlet, the
heavy masses of her dark hair falling across her arms and shoulders. She
lifted her hands imploringly toward the soft radiance that poured
through the window.
"I never prayed," she whispered. "I'm wicked--I'm wicked, but, O God, I
want Dave."