In an athletic generation Phyllis was an anachronism. She was the sort
of girl one's great-grandmother was, only better-looking--one's
great-grandmother, if there is any truth in oil and canvas, having been
neatly and roundly turned out of a peg of wood. Phyllis played no game
well, unless gardening is a game. She liked to embroider and to write
long letters in a wonderfully neat hand. She disliked intensely the
roaring of firearms and the diabolic flopping of fresh-caught fish. She
was one of those people who never look at a sunset or a moonrise or a
flower without actually seeing them, and yet, withal, her sisters Lee
and Gay looked upon her with a certain awe and respect. She was so
strong in the wrists and fingers that she could hold them when they were
rambunctious. And she was only afraid of things that aren't in the least
dangerous. "No," they said, "she can't fish and shoot and row and play
tennis and dive and swim under water, but she's the best dancer in the
family--probably in the world--and the best sport."
Phyllis was, in truth, a good sport, or else she was more attracted by
Mr. Herring's _Salvia-splendens_ hair than she would have cared to
admit. Whatever the cause, she met him at the float the next morning at
five-thirty, prepared to guide him or perish in the attempt. She wore a
short blue skirt and a long white sweater of Shetland wool. It weighed
about an ounce. She wore white tennis shoes and an immense pair of
well-oiled gardening gloves. At least she would put off blistering her
hands as long as possible.
Phyllis, to be exact, was five minutes early for her appointment. This
gave her time to get a boat into the water without displaying
awkwardness to any one but herself--also, to slip the oars over the
thole-pins and to accustom herself to the idea of handling them. She had
taken coaching the night before from Lee and Gay, sitting on a bearskin
rug in front of the fire, and swaying rhythmically forward and back.
As Herring was no fisherman, her sisters advised her to row very slowly.
"Tell him," they said, "that a boat rushing through water alarms fish
more than anything in the world."
She told him when he was seated in the stern of the boat facing her.
"You mustn't mind going very slow," she said. "The fish in this part of
the Adirondacks are noted for their sensitiveness in general and their
acute sense of hearing in particular. Why, if I were to row as fast as I
can"--there must have been a twinkle in her eyes--"trout miles away
would be frightened out of their skins," and she added mentally, "and I
should upset this horribly wabbly boat into the bargain."
They proceeded at a snail's pace, Phyllis dabbing the water gingerly
with her oars, with something of that caution and repulsion with which
one turns over a dead snake with a stick--to see if it is dead.
The grips of guide-boat oars overlap. And your hands follow rather than
accompany each other from catch to finish, and from finish to catch. If
you are careless, or not to the stroke born or trained, you occasionally
knock little chunks of skin and flesh from your knuckles.
Herring watched Phyllis's gentle and restrained efforts with inscrutable
eyes.
"I never could understand," he said, "how you fellows manage to row at
all with that sort of an outfit. At Harvard they only give you one oar
and let you take both hands to it, and then you can't row. At least, I
couldn't. They put me right out of the boat. They said I caught crabs.
As a matter of fact, I didn't. All I did was to sit there, and every now
and then the handle of my oar banged me across the solar plexus."
"We're not going far, you know," said Phyllis (and she mastered the
desire to laugh). "Hadn't you--ah--um--better put your rod together?"
"Oh, I can do that!" said Herring. "You begin with the big piece and you
stick the next-sized piece into that, and so on. And I know how to put
the reel on, because the man in the store showed me, and I know how to
run the line through the rings."
"Well," said Phyllis, "that's more than half the battle."
"And," Herring continued, "he showed me how to tie on the
what-you-may-call-it and the flies."
"Good!" said Phyllis.
"And, of course," he concluded, "I've forgotten."
Now, Phyllis had been shown how to tie flies to a leader only the night
before, and she, also, had forgotten.
"There are," she said, "a great many fetiches among anglers. Among them
are knots. Now, in my experience, almost any knot that will stand will
do. The important thing is to choose the right flies."
As to this, she had also received instruction, but with better results,
since it was an entirely feminine affair of colored silks and feathers.
"I will tell you which flies to use," she said.
"And," said he, "you will also have to show me how to cast."
"What!" she exclaimed, and stopped rowing, "You don't know how to cast?"
"No," he said, "I don't. I'm a dub. Didn't you know that?"
"But," she protested, "I can't teach you in a morning"--and she added
mentally--"or in a whole lifetime, for that matter."
It was not more than a mile across the mouth of a deep bay to the brook
in which they had elected to fish. With no wind to object, the most
dabbily propelled guide boat travels with considerable speed, and before
Herring had managed to tie the flies which Phyllis had selected to his
leader (with any kind of a knot) they were among the snaggy shallows of
the brook's mouth.
The brook was known locally as Swamp Brook, its shores for a mile or
more being boggy and treacherous. Fishermen who liked to land
occasionally and cast from terra firma avoided it. Phyllis had selected
it solely because it was the nearest brook to the camp which contained
trout. If she had remembered how full it was of snags, and how easily
guide boats are turned turtle, she would have selected some other brook,
even, if necessary, at the "Back of beyond." It had been easy enough to
propel the boat across the open waters of the lake, but to guide it
clear of snags and around right-angle bends, especially when the genius
of rowing demands that eyes look astern rather than ahead, was beyond
her powers. The boat ran into snags, poked its nose into boggy banks,
turned half over, righted, rushed on, and stopped again with rude bumps.
Herring, that fatalistic young Bostonian, began to take an interest in
his fate. His flies trailed in the water behind him. His eyes never left
Phyllis's face. His handsome mouth was as near to smiling as it ever
got.
"Do you," he said presently, "swim as well as you row?"
She stopped rowing; she laughed right out.
"Just about," she said.
"Good," he said seriously, "because I'm a dub at it, and in case of an
upset, I look to you."
"The truth," said Phyllis, "is that there's no place to swim to. It's
all swamp in here."
"True," said Herring; "we would have to cling to the boat and call upon
Heaven to aid us."
One of Herring's flies, trailing in the water, proved, at this moment,
overwhelmingly attractive to a young and unsophisticated trout.
Herring shouted with the triumph of a schoolboy, "I've got one," and
sprang to his feet.
"Please sit down!" said Phyllis. "We almost went that time."
"So we did," said Herring.
He sat down, and they almost "went" again.
"Now," said Phyllis, "play him."
"Play him?" said Herring. "Watch me." And he began to pull strongly upon
the fish.
The fish was young and weak. Herring's tackle was new and strong. The
fish dangled in mid-air over the middle of the boat.
"Sorry," said Herring, "I can't reach him. Take him off, please."
It has been said that Phyllis was a good sport. If there was one thing
she hated and feared more than another, it was a live fish. She reached
forward; her gloved hand almost closed upon it; it gave a convulsive
flop; Phyllis squeaked like a mouse, threw her weight to one side, and
the boat quietly upset.
The sportsmen came to the surface streaming.
"I can touch bottom," said Herring politely; "can you?"
"Yes," she said, "but my feet are sinking into it--" She tore them loose
and swam. Herring did likewise. And they clung to the boat.
"I hope you'll forgive me," said Phyllis. "I never rowed a boat before
and I never could stand live fish."
"It was my fault," said Herring. "Something told me to lean the opposite
from the way you leaned. But it told me too late. The truth is I don't
know how to behave in a boat. Well, you are still guide. It's up to
you."
"What is up to me?"
"A plan of some sort," said he, "to get us out of this."
"Oh, no," she said, "it's up to you."
"My plan," he said, "would be to get back into the boat and row home. It
seems feasible, and even easy. But appearances are deceptive. I think
I'd rather walk. What has happened here might happen out on the middle
of the lake."
"What you don't realize," said Phyllis, "is that we're in the midst of
an impassable swamp."
"Impassable?"
"Well, no one's ever crossed it except in winter."
"What--no one!"
He was immensely interested.
"Do you know," he went on confidentially, "the only things that I'm good
at are things for which there are no precedents--things that nobody has
ever done before. That's why I'm so fond of doing unusual things. Now,
you say that this swamp has never been crossed? Enough said. You and I
will cross it. We _will_ do it. Are you game?"
"It seems," said Phyllis, "merely a question of when and where we drown.
So I'm game. Your teeth are chattering."
"Thank you," said Herring. "But no harm will come to them. They are very
strong."
"I hope," said Phyllis, "that when I come out of the water you won't
look at me. I shall be a sight."
"A comrade in trouble," said Herring, "is never a sight."
"I am so ashamed," said Phyllis.
"What of?"
"Of being such a fool."
"You're a good sport," said Herring. "That's what you are."
By dint of violent kicking and paddling with their free hands they
managed to propel the guide boat from the centre of the brook to a
firm-looking clump of reeds and alder roots which formed a tiny
peninsula from that shore which was toward The Camp. Covered with slime
and mud they dragged themselves out of the water and stood balancing
upon the alder roots to recover their breath.
"We must each take an oar," said Herring. "We can make little bridges
with them. And we must keep working hard so as to get warm. We shall
live to write a brochure about this: 'From Clump to Clump, or Mudfoots
in the Adirondacks.'"
Between that clump on which they had found a footing and the next was
ten feet of water.
Herring crossed seven feet of it with one heavy jump, fell on his face,
caught two handfuls of viburnum stems, and once more dragged himself out
of water.
"Now then," he called, "float the oars over to me." And when Phyllis had
done this: "Now you come. The main thing in crossing swamps is to keep
flat instead of up and down. Jump for it--fall forward--and I'll get
your hands!"
Once more they stood side by side precariously balancing.
"The moment," said Herring, "that you begin to feel bored, tell me."
"Why?"
"So that I can encourage you. I will tell you that you are doing
something that has never been done before. And that will make you feel
fine and dandy. What we are doing is just as hard as finding the North
Pole, only there isn't going to be so much of it. Now then, in
negotiating this next sheet of water----"
And so they proceeded until the sun was high in the heavens and until it
was low.