“That looks just like my old canoe,” said he. “Somebody must have left
it adrift up the river. I wonder how it floated down here without being
picked up.” He put out his hand and caught it, as it touched the dock.
In the stern a good paddle of maple-wood was lying; in the middle there
was a roll of blankets and a pack of camp-stuff; in the bow a rifle.
“All ready for a trip,” he laughed. “Nobody going but me? Well, then, au
large!” And stepping into the canoe he pushed out on the river.
The saffron and golden lights in the sky diffused themselves over the
surface of the water, and spread from the bow of the canoe in deeper
waves of purple and orange, as he paddled swiftly up stream. The pale
yellow gas-lamps of the town faded behind him. The lumber-yards and
factories and disconsolate little houses of the outskirts seemed to melt
away. In a little while he was floating between dark walls of forest,
through the heart of the wilderness.
The night deepened around him and the sky hung out its thousand lamps.
Odours of the woods floated on the air: the spicy fragrance of the firs;
the breath of hidden banks of twin-flower. Muskrats swam noiselessly in
the shadows, diving with a great commotion as the canoe ran upon them
suddenly. A horned owl hooted from the branch of a dead pine-tree; far
back in the forest a fox barked twice. The moon crept up behind the wall
of trees and touched the stream with silver.
Presently the forest receded: the banks of the river grew broad and
open; the dew glistened on the tall grass; it was surely the River of
Meadows. Far ahead of him in a bend of the stream, Luke’s ear caught a
new sound: SLOSH, SLOSH, SLOSH, as if some heavy animal were crossing
the wet meadow. Then a great splash! Luke swung the canoe into the
shadow of the bank and paddled fast. As he turned the point a black bear
came out of the river, and stood on the shore, shaking the water around
him in glittering spray. Ping! said the rifle, and the bear fell. “Good
luck!” said Luke. “I haven’t forgotten how, after all. I’ll take him
into the canoe, and dress him up at the camp.”
Yes, there was the little cabin at the meeting of the rivers. The
door was padlocked, but Luke knew how to pry off one of the staples.
Squirrels had made a litter on the floor, but that was soon swept out,
and a fire crackled in the stove. There was tea and ham and bread in the
pack in the canoe. Supper never tasted better. “One more night in the
old camp,” said Luke as he rolled himself in the blanket and dropped
asleep in a moment.
The sun shone in at the door and woke him. “I must have a trout for
breakfast,” he cried, “there’s one waiting for me at the mouth of Alder
Brook, I suppose.” So he caught up his rod from behind the door, and got
into the canoe and paddled up the River of Rocks. There was the broad,
dark pool, like a little lake, with a rapid running in at the head, and
close beside the rapid, the mouth of the brook. He sent his fly out by
the edge of the alders. There was a huge swirl on the water, and the
great-grandfather of all the trout in the river was hooked. Up and down
the pool he played for half an hour, until at last the fight was over,
and for want of a net Luke beached him on the gravel bank at the foot of
the pool.
“Seven pounds if it’s an ounce,” said he. “This is my lucky day. Now all
I need is some good meat to provision the camp.”
He glanced down the river, and on the second point below the pool he saw
a great black bullmoose with horns five feet wide.
Quietly, swiftly, the canoe went gliding down the stream; and ever as it
crept along, the moose loped easily before it, from point to point, from
bay to bay, past the little cabin, down the River of the Way Out, now
rustling unseen through a bank of tall alders, now standing out for
a moment bold and black on a beach of white sand--so all day long the
moose loped down the stream and the white canoe followed. Just as the
setting sun was poised above the trees, the great bull stopped and stood
with head lifted. Luke pushed the canoe as near as he dared, and looked
down for the rifle. He had left it at the cabin! The moose tossed his
huge antlers, grunted, and stepped quietly over the bushes into the
forest.
Luke paddled on down the stream. It occurred to him, suddenly, that it
was near evening. He wondered a little how he should reach home in time
for his engagement. But it did not seem strange, as he went swiftly
on with the river, to see the first houses of the town, and the
lumber-yards, and the schooners at the wharf.
He made the canoe fast at the dock, and went up the Main Street. There
was the old shop, but the sign over it read, “Wilson and Woods Company,
The Big Store.” He went on to the house with the white iron images in
the front yard. Diana was still returning from the chase. The fountain
still squirted from the point of the little boy’s parasol.
On the veranda sat a stout man in a rocking chair, reading the
newspaper. At the side of the house two little girls with pig-tails were
playing croquet. Some one in the parlour was executing “After the Ball
is Over” on a mechanical piano.
Luke accosted a stranger who passed him. “Excuse me, but can you tell me
whether this is Mr. Matthew Wilson’s house?”
“It used to be,” said the stranger, “but old man Wilson has been dead
these ten years.”
“And who lives here now?” asked Luke.
“Mr. Woods: he married Wilson’s daughter,” said the stranger, and went
on his way.
“Well,” said Luke to himself, “this is just a little queer. Woods was my
name for a while, when I lived here, but now, I suppose, I’m Luke Dubois
again. Dashed if I can understand it. Somebody must have been dreaming.”
So he went back to the white canoe, and paddled away up the river, and
nobody in Scroll-Saw City ever set eyes on him again.