MASTER paddled slowly to the landing where he had left Strong, and
gathered lilies while they waited. He pushed up to the shore as soon
as the Emperor had arrived. "Sp'ilt," said the latter, pointing in the
direction of Robin Lake.
"You mean that we cannot use the camp over there?"
"Ay-ah," Strong almost whispered, with a face in which perspiration was
mingled with regret and geniality.
"S-see 'er?"
"Yes," Master answered. "The children were a great help. She fell in
love with them. We are to meet her again Thursday."
"Uh-huh!" Strong exclaimed, in a tone which seemed to say, "I told you
so."
"S-sociable?" he inquired, after a little pause.
"No, but interested."
"Uh-huh, says I!" the Emperor exclaimed again, with playful conceit.
When he was in the mood of self-congratulation he had an odd way of
bringing out those two words--"says I."
"She was afraid of me. I backed away and said very little," Master
explained.
"Th-they'll t-tame her," the Emperor assured him.
"She has a wonderful crow with her," said the young man.
"Her g-guide," Strong explained. "Alwus knows the n-nighest way home."
"If you'll help me, I'll make my camp here," said Master.
"Ay-ah," the Emperor answered.
His manner and his odd remark were full of approval and almost
affectionate admiration. In half a moment his tongue lazily added,
"L-lean her 'gin th-that air rock." In his conversation he conferred the
feminine gender upon all inanimate things--a kind of compliment to the
sex he revered so highly.
"How long will it take?"
"Day," said Strong, surveying the ground.
"I have to speak in Hillsborough on the Fourth. Suppose we tackle it on
my return?"
Strong agreed, and while he and the children set out for camp Master
remained to fish.
Two "sports" had arrived in the absence of the Emperor and were shooting
at a mark--a pastime so utterly foolish in the view of Silas Strong that
he would rarely permit any one at Lost River camp to indulge in it.
He who discharged his rifle without sufficient provocation was roughly
classed with that breed of hounds which had learned no better than to
bark at a squirrel.
"Paunchers!" he muttered, as he came up the trail.
It should be explained here that he divided all "would-be sportsmen"
into three classes--namely, swishers, pouters, and paunchers. A swisher
was one who filled the air within reach of his cast, catching trees and
bushes, but no fish; a pouter, one who baited and hauled his fish as if
it were no better than a bull-pout; a pauncher was wont to hit his deer
"in the middle" and never saw him again.
The Emperor stopped suddenly. He had seen a twig fall near him and heard
the whiz of a bullet.
"Whoa!" he called, his voice ringing in the timber. "H-hold on!"
The Migleys--father and son--of Migleyville, hastened to greet the
"Emperor of the Woods."
They were the heralds of the great king of which Strong had complained
that night he laid his heart bare and whose name was Business--a king
who ruled not with the sword, but with flattery and temptation and
artful devices. The Emperor knew that they were the men who had bought
his stronghold; that they were come to shove the frontier of their
king far beyond the Lost River country; that axes and saws and dams and
flooded flats and whirling wheels and naked hill-sides would soon follow
them.
"How are you, Mr. Strong?" said the elder Migley, who, by his son, was
familiarly called "Pop." He overflowed with geniality. "Glad to see you.
Hot an' dry out in the clearing. Little track-worn. Thought we'd come
in here for a breath o' fresh air an' a week or two o' sport. Have a
drink?"
He winked one eye in a significant manner, which seemed to say that he
had plenty and was out for a good time.
"N-no th-thanks," said Strong, as he surveyed the stout figure of the
elder Migley.
Here was one of the royal family of Business, in dress neatly symbolic,
for Mr. Migley wore a light suit of clothes divided into checks of
considerable magnitude by stripes that ran, as it were, north, south,
east, and west. The broad convexity of his front resembled, in some
degree, an atlas globe. One might have located any part of his system
by degrees of latitude and longitude. His equator was represented by a
large golden chain which curved in a great arc from one pocket of his
waistcoat to the other. As he walked one might have imagined that he
was moving in his orbit. His large, full face was adorned with a
chin-whisker and a selfish and prosperous-looking nose. It had got
possession of nearly all the color in his countenance, and occupied more
than its share of space. The son, "Tom," had older manners and a more
severe face. He carried with him a look of world-weariness and a
sense of all-embracing knowledge so frequently derived from youthful
experience. He was the-only-son type of domestic tyrant--overfed,
selfish, brutal, wearied by adulation, crowned with curly hair.
"Look at that boy," the elder Migley whispered, pointing at the fat
young man of twenty-three who sat on a door-sill cleaning his rifle.
"Ain't he a picture? Got a fast mark in Hash-ford Seminary." Mr. Migley
owned a number of trotting-horses, and his conversation was always
flavored with the cant of the stable.
Strong looked sadly at the fat young man, who was, indeed, the very
personification of pulp, and thought of the doom of the woods.
The elder Migley, as if able to read the mind of Strong, offered him
the consolation of a cigar. Then he reached to the pegs above him and
lowered a quaking whip of greenheart which he had put together soon
after his arrival.
"Heft it," he whispered, pressing his rod upon the Emperor. "Ain't that
a dandy?"
He looked into the eyes of the woodsman. He winked a kind of challenge,
and added, "Seems to me that ought to fetch 'em."
"Mebbe," Strong answered, gently swaying the rod. He was never too free
in committing himself.
"Got it for Tommy," said the new sportsman. "Ketched a four-pounder
with it--ask him if I didn't." Mr. Migley had the habit of
self-corroboration, and Strong used to say that he never believed that
kind of a liar.
"Le's go an' try 'em," Migley suggested.
The Emperor smoked thoughtfully a moment.
"D-down river, bym-by," he said, pointing at the cook-tent as if he had
now to prepare the dinner.
Strong had seen the Migleys before, although he had never entertained
them. They had paunched and pouted in territory not far remote from Lost
River, and won a reputation which had travelled among the guides. They
worked hard, and hurried out of the woods with all the fish and meat
they could carry, and no respect for any law save one--the law of
gravitation. They sat down or lay upon their backs every half-hour. Now,
it seemed, they were to abandon the vulgar art of the pouter for one
more gentle and becoming.
Strong hastened to the cook-tent, where he found Sinth treating the
children to sugared cakes and words of motherly fondness.
"Teenty little dears!" she was saying when Silas entered the door.
She rose quickly, and hurried to the stove with a kind of shame on her
countenance. Silas kept a sober face while he went for the water-pail,
as if he had not "took notice." His joy broke free and expressed itself
in loud laughter on his way to the spring.
"Snook!" Sinth exclaimed, her face red with embarrassment as she heard
him. She poked the fire with great energy, and added: "Let the fool
laugh. I don't care if he did hear me."
A new impulse from the heart of nature entered the Migley breast. Father
and son were seeking an opportunity to use their muscles. The son seized
a girder above his head and began to chin it; the father went to work
with an axe, and his enthusiasm fell in heavy blows upon a beech log.
Strong peered through the window at him and muttered the one
contemptuous word, "W-woodpecker!"
A poor chopper in that part of the country was always classed with the
woodpeckers.
Dinner over, the elder Migley opened his tin fishing-box and displayed
an assortment of cheap flies and leaders.
"Well, captain," said the young man, as he turned to Strong, "if you'll
show us where the trout live, we'll show you who they belong to." He
passed judgment and bestowed rank upon a great many people, and most of
his brevets, if he had been frank with them, would have put his life in
peril.
"Pop" Migley touched a rib of the Emperor with his big, coercive thumb,
shut one eye, and produced a kind of snore in his larynx.
The wit of his son had increased the cheerfulness of Mr. Migley. He
began telling coarse tales, and continued until, as the Emperor would
say, he had "emptied his reel." The man who talked too much always had
a "big reel," in the thought of the Emperor, and "slack line" was the
phrase he applied to empty words.
With everything ready for sport, they proceeded to the landing on Lost
River and were soon seated in a long canoe.
"We'll t-try Dunmore's trout," said Strong as they left the shore.
"Dunmore's trout?" said the elder Migley.
"Ay-uh," the Emperor answered. "He hitched onto an' l-lost him."
"Oh, it's that fish I've heard about that grabbed off one of Dunmore's
flies," said the elder Migley.
"Uh-huh," the Emperor assented.
As a matter of fact, the old gentleman who lived on the shore of
Buckhorn had done a good deal of talking about this remarkable fish.
Father and son sat with rods in hand while Strong worked through the
still water and down a long rush of rapids and halted below them near a
deep pool flecked with foam.
"C-cast," said he.
With a wild swish and a spasmodic movement of arm and shoulder, "Pop"
Migley, who sat amidships, tipped the canoe until it took water.
Strong dashed his paddle and recovered balance. The young man swore.
"C-cast yer _f-flies_," Strong suggested, and his emphasis clearly
indicated that the fisherman should cease casting his body.
Again the _nouveau_ worked his rod, whipping its point to the water fore
and aft. Flies and leader clawed over the back of Silas Strong, fetching
his hat off. Before he could recover, the young man went into action.
Strong ducked in time to save an ear, splashing his paddle again to keep
the canoe on its bottom. The tail-fly had caught above his elbow. When
Strong tried to loosen its hold the young man was tugging at the
line. Strong endeavored to speak, but somehow the words wouldn't come.
Suddenly the other rod came back with a powerful swing and smote him on
the top of his head.
He had been trying to say "See here," but his tongue had halted on the
s. Then he took a new tack, as it were, and tried a phrase which began
with the letter g, and had fair success with it.
Both Migleys gave a start of surprise. The Emperor waited to recover
self-control and felt a touch of remorse.
"Le' me c-climb a t-tree," he suggested, presently.
The elder Migley burst into loud laughter.
"Stop fooling!" said the young man. "I'd like to get some fish."
He swung his rod, and was again tugging at the shirt-sleeve of the
Emperor.
Strong blew as he clung to the leader.
"C-cast c-crossways," he commanded, with a gesture.
The fishermen rested a moment. A hundred feet or so below them Strong
saw a squirrel crossing the still water. Suddenly there was a movement
behind him, and he sank out of sight. In half a moment he rose again,
swimming with frantic haste to reach a clump of alder branches. Strong
knew the mysterious villain of this little drama of the river, but said
not a word of what he had seen.
The "sports" resumed fishing with less confidence and more care. Soon
they were able to reach off twenty feet or so, but they raked the air
with deadly violence, and every moment one leader was laying hold of the
other or catching in a tree-top. Strong pulled down bough after bough to
free the flies. Presently they were caught high in a balsam.
"Take us where there's trout. What do you think we're fishing for,
anyway?" said young Migley.
"B-birds," Strong answered, as he continued hauling at the tree-top
with hand and paddle. He used language always for the simple purpose of
expressing his thoughts. Soon the elder Migley began to feel the need of
information. He passed his rod to the Emperor.
"Show me how ye do it," said he.
Strong paddled to a large, flat rock which rose, mid-stream, a little
above water. He climbed upon it and sat down lazily.
Nature had taught him, as she teaches all who bear heavy burdens, to
conserve his strength. He had none to waste in the support of dignity.
When he sat down his weight was braced with hand, foot, and elbow so
as to rest his heart and muscles. Now he seemed to anchor himself by
throwing his right knee over his left foot. His garment of cord and
muscle lay loosely on his bones. There was that in the pose of this man
to remind one of an ox lying peacefully in the field. He drew a loop of
line off the reel, and with no motion of arm or body, his wrist bent,
the point of the rod sprang forward, his flies leaped the length of
his line and fell lightly on the river surface. They wavered across the
current. He drew another loop of line. The rod rose and gave its double
spring, and his flies leaped away and fell farther down the current. So
his line flickered back and forth, running out and reaching with every
cast until it spanned near a hundred feet.
Still the Emperor smoked lazily, and, saving that little movement of the
wrist, reposed as motionless and serene as the rock upon which he sat.
Suddenly Strong's figure underwent a remarkable change. He bent forward,
alert as a panther in sight of his prey. His mouth was open, his eyes
full of animation. The supple wrist bent swiftly. The flies sprang up
and flashed backward; the line sang in its flight. Where the squirrel
rose a big trout had sprung above water and come down with a splash. But
he had missed his aim. Again the flies lighted precisely where the
trout sprang and wavered slowly through the bubbles. A breath of silence
followed. The finned arrow burst above water in a veil of mist; down he
plunged with a fierce grab at the tail-fly. The wrist of the fisherman
sprang upward. The barb caught; the line slanted straight as a lance and
seemed to strike at the river-bottom. The rod was bending. The fish had
given a quick haul, and now the line's end came rushing in. The shrewd
old trout knew how to gather slack on a fisherman. Strong rose like a
jack-in-the-box. His hand flashed to the reel. It began to play like
the end of a piston. He swung half around and his rod came up. The fish
turned for a mad rush. With hands upon rod and silk the fisherman
held to check him. Strong's line ripped through the water plane from
mid-river to the shadow of the bank. The strain upon the fish's jaw
halted him. He settled and began to jerk on the line. Strong raised his
foot and tapped the butt of his rod. The report seemed to go down the
line as if it had been a telephone message. It startled the trout, and
again he took a long reach of silk off the reel. Then slowly he went
back and forth through an arc of some twenty feet, and the long line
swung like a pendulum. Weakened by his efforts, he began to lead in.
Slowly he came near the rock, and soon the splendid trout lay gasping
from utter weariness an arm's-length from his captor.
As the net approached him he dove again, hauling with fierce energy. The
man was leaning over the edge of the rock, his rod in one hand, his net
in the other. He came near losing his balance in the sudden attack. He
scrambled into position. Again the trout gave up and followed the strain
of the leader. Strong let himself down upon the river-bottom beside the
rock, and stood to his belt in water. The fish retreated again and came
back helpless and was taken.
He filled the net. A great tail-fin waved above its rim. The Emperor
hefted his catch and blew like a buck deer, after his custom in moments
of great stress. Then came a declaration of unusual length.
"Ye could r-reel me in with a c-c-cotton th-thread an' p-pick me up in
yer f-fingers."
It was growing dusk. Strong clambered to the top of the rock. "Pop"
Migley brought the canoe alongside.
The Emperor gave a loud whistle of surprise.
"Dunmore's t-trout!" he said, soberly. He had found a "black gnat"
embedded in the fish's mouth, its snell broken near the loop. He put the
struggling fish back in the net and tied his handkerchief across the top
of it.
The Migleys both agreed that they were ready for supper.
The Emperor got aboard and requested the elder Migley to keep the fish
under water, while he took his paddle and pushed for camp. They put
their trout in a spring at the boat-house.
The sports hurried to camp. Master came down the path and met Strong.
"I've got D-Dunmore's t-trout," said the latter.
"Good!" Master answered; "that will give us an excuse to go and call on
him."