ON Catamount Pond young Master had enjoyed a memorable day. He was an
expert fisherman, but the lonely quiet of the scene had been more than
fish to him: of it was a barren ridge, from the top of which a broken
column of dead pine, like a shaft of wrought marble, towered straight
and high above the woods. The curving shore had a fringe of lily-pads,
starred here and there with white tufts. Around thickets of birch, on
a point of land, a little cove was the end of all the deer-trails that
came out of Jiminy Swamp. It was the gateway of the pond for all who
journeyed thither to eat and drink. There were white columns on either
side, and opposite the cove's end was a thicket of tamarack, clear of
brush. A deep mat of vivid green moss came to the water's edge. When one
had rounded the point in his canoe, he could see into those cool, dark
alleys of the deer, leading off through slender tamaracks. A little
beyond were the rock bastions of Painter Mountain, five hundred' feet
above the water.
The young man, having grown weary of fishing, leaned back, lighted his
pipe, and drifted. He could hear the chattering of a hedgehog up in the
dry timber, and the scream of a hawk, like the whistle of some craft,
leagues away on the sunlit deep of silence. A wild goose steered
straight across the heavens, far bound, his wings making a noise like
the cleaving of water and the creak of full sails. He saw the man below
him and flung a cry overboard. A great bee, driven out of a lily, threw
his warning loop around the head of the intruder and boomed out of
hearing. Those threads of sound seemed to bind the tongue of the youth,
and to connect his soul with the great silence into which they ran.
Robert Master had crossed that desert of uncertainty which lies between
college and the beginning of a career. At last he had made his plan. He
would try in his own simple way to serve his country. He was a man of
"the new spirit," of pure ideals, of high patriotism. He had set out to
try to make his way in politics.
He had been one of the "big men," dauntless and powerful, who had
saved the day for his _alma mater_ more than once on the track and the
gridiron. Handsome was a word which had been much applied to him. Hard
work in the open air had given him a sturdy figure and added the glow of
health and power to a face of unusual refinement. It was the face of a
man with whom the capacity, for stern trials had come by acquisition
and not by inheritance. He had cheerful brown eyes and a smile of
good-nature that made him beloved. His father was at the big camp, some
twenty miles away, his mother and sister having gone abroad. He and his
father were fond of their forest home; the ladies found it a bore. They
loved better the grand life and the great highways of travel.
Master sat in the centre of his canoe; an elbow rested on his paddle
which lay athwart the gunwales. He drifted awhile. He had chosen his
life work but not his life partner. He pictured to himself the girl he
would love, had he ever the luck to find her. He had thrown off his hat,
and his dark hair shone in the sunlight. Soon he pushed slowly down the
pond. In a moment he stilled his paddle and sat looking into Birch Cove.
Two fawns were playing in the edge of the water, while their dam, with
the dignity of a matron, stood on the shore looking down at them.
The fawns gambolled in the shallows like a colt at play, now and then
dashing their muzzles in the cool water. Their red coats were starred
white as if with snow-flakes. The deer stood a moment looking at Master,
stamped her feet, and retired into one of the dark alleys. In a moment
her fawns followed.
Turning, the fisherman beheld what gave him even greater surprise. In
the shadow of the birches, on a side of the cove and scarcely thirty
feet from his canoe, a girl sat looking at him. She wore a blue knit
jacket and gray skirt. There was nothing on her head save its mass of
light hair that fell curling on her shoulders. Her skin was brown as a
berry, her features of a noble and delicate mould. Her eyes, blue and
large, made their potent appeal to the heart of Master. They were like
those of his dreams--he could never forget them. So far it's the old
story of love at sight--but listen. For half a moment they looked into
each other's eyes. Then the girl, as if she were afraid of him, rose and
disappeared among the columns of white birch.
Long he sat there wondering about this strange vision of girlhood, until
he heard the halloo of Silas Strong. Turning his canoe, he pushed for
the landing.
"L-lucky?" Strong asked.
"Twenty fish, and I saw the most beautiful woman in the world."
"Where?"
"Sitting on the shore of Birch Cove. Any camp near?"
The Emperor shook his head thoughtfully as he lighted his pipe. The two
made their way up the trail.
"W-wonder if it's her?" Strong whispered to himself as he walked along.
After supper that evening Silas Strong gathered a heap of wood for a
bonfire--a way he had of celebrating arrivals at Lost River camp. Soon
he was running upon hands and knees in the firelight, with Socky and Sue
on his back.
"Silas Strong!" was the seornful exclamation of Sinth, as she took a
seat by the fire, "P-present!" he answered, as he werit on, the children
laughing merrily. "Be you a man 'or a fool?"
"Both;" he answered, ceasing his harlequinade. Sinth began her knitting,
wearing, a look of injury. "Plumb crazy 'bout them air childern!" she
exclaimed.
The "Emperor of the Woods" sat on a log, breathing heavily, with Sue and
Socky upon his knees.
"B-bears plenty, Mis' Strong," was the gentle reply of Silas.
"Mis' Strong!" said she, as if insulted. "What ye Mis' Strongin' me
for?"
When others were present she was wont to fling back upon him this
burning query. Now it seemed to stimulate him to a rather unusual
effort.
"S-some folks b-better when ye miss 'em," he suggested, with a smile of
good-nature.
Miss Strong gathered up her knitting and promptly retired, from the
scene. Sue and Socky lay back on the lap of their Uncle Silas looking
into the fire. They now saw in him great possibilities. Socky, in
particular, had begun to regard him as likely to be useful if not highly
magnificent.
Sue lay back and began to make a drowsy display of her learning:
"Intry, mintry, cutry com,
Apple-seed an' apple-thorn,
Wire, brier, limber lock,
Twelve geese all in a white flock;