ON THE LAKE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10580, 8 October 1910, Page 2 (Supplement)

ON THE LAKE.

(By Jolin R. M'Mahon.)

"I want a guide who does his work and earns Ms wages." The stout, red-faced man—J. Ihornleigh Weldon, of New York—lolled m ] a comfortable armchair on the porch of the little inn at the foot of the lake. "Yes sir," said the tall, lean woodsman, Bronze of face, keen-eyed, who stood respectfully, hat in hand, before him. . , "A man who doesn't shirk—who is honest and reliable," eomtmued -Mr Weldon, nicking the ash off his cigar with a puffy finger on which a diamond sparkled. "There arc too many guides, I understand, who don't give full value. You look to me a little better than the "Yes, sir," replied the other, and, in spite of himself, cast an anxious glance at a group of the rest who were applicants for the job of guiding the iNew Yorker in the Maine woods. "What do vou think ot my costume. Is it suitable for the woods, and all The shabbilv dressed woodsman, in belted trousers, flannel shirt, and worn moccasins, made a grave inspection ot the outfit-the k.d-hncd canvas jacket with many pockets, a silk vest, tweed knickSkeVs, ribbed stockings in lavender and green, a vizor cap, and hieh pigskin shoes. ~ , "It will do all right for this time .of yea"sir," he said. "In the fall you'd want something quieter. . "Well, let's get down to business. What's your name, and how long, have you been guiding ?" . -j' "Tom Ames, sir. -I have heen guiding for eighteen years." . t' ' "Got anv recommendations, Ames.'' "No, sir—not with me," he replied, flushing. "But I'm known all ■ down the line. The hotel-keeper and I everybody here knows me. I m regwC "Ycm ought to carry references, my man. In the city I wouldn't lure you if you couldn't fill out a blank showing where you'd been employed for the last ten years: and every reference and statement would have to be yenned. "We're not so suspicious of men up here, sir," said Ames quietly,,the flush deepening in his cheeks. . "Why not? Human nature is the same in the woods as it is in town. I.don't trust any man.' "You can leave your valuables in the hotel," said the guide with a simplicity that seemed too complete for sarcasm. "They won't be any use in the woods. Mr Walden grunted. "I. suppose you can cook, Ames?" "Yes/sir" 7 , -, I ''Well you've got to be a good cook | to suit me. No unnecessary hardshipj for me I don't want any bacon anu beans, or stuff like that." - "You can have fried trout and hot biscuits, sir, beside the stuff we take "How about venison, eh —or a,little moose-steak 9 " -. , , The guide looked at the fat-]owled man "It's the close season for game, Sir "Non, look here,'-my man," said Mr Weldon in his rasping voice, I didn t come four hundred miles to find that out I came to get a rest, and some sport, too. I have a new-style knockdown rifle in that, case, and I'm going to try it on some deer and moose that you'll show me." "It is against the law. There is a big fine, sir." •'You guides" never break the law, 1 eh?" sneered the New Yorker. _ "Not when nobody is looking? You ]ust fax it so I can use that rifle. I'm willing to tip the game-warden, if he's around, with a yellow-spot —say, fifty—but 1 won't pay any graft. You see the warden and fix it up with him. You ve done it before." t r. The woodsman's eye flashed, and his muscular fingers crushed the felt hat he held behind his back. But he saw the group of waiting applicants. His eyes fell, and he said nothing. "About your wages, Ames," said Mr Weldon complacently, taking it for granted that the law-breaking point was settled. "It seems to me .that the three-dollar rate is rather steep, in view of all this competition. Will you work for less?" "HI work as cheap as any man, sir. Til —I'll —whatever "you—" <f Oh, well, "I won't beat you down. A few dollars more or less don't interest me. I only spoke of it as a matter of principle. ' I want to pay the market value of things, including labor, and that value is determined by competition. But if you do your work well, we'll consider the difference"a present; and I may add to it, too, when we get through." "Thank *you, sir." ' 'SAII. right. You're engaged. les, we'll 'take that canoe trip to the head of the lake, and look into the trout proposition. You can pack up my things. „And, look here, Ames, just take off these shoes for me, and find me something lighter in that bag." ' ~5. Thornleigh Weldon held out his right foot. The tall woodsman gazed at it a moment. "Hurry up," grunted the employer. Ames dropped on his knees and began to unlace the" pigskin shoe. One'of the group of disappointed ap.plic/ints; who were .turning away, re'marked: . _ / '.'Darned if that ain't the first time 1 seen'Tdm Ames acting like a vallit. But he needs the job. It's been a poor year, for all of us, but darned if lie don't need -the job worse than we do, boys. He has a wife sick in the hospital down river." When the cedar canoe had been pack ed high at Doth ends with many superfluous things, the guide" held it, squat- . ting on the bank, and directed his employer where to sit. Mr Weldon stepped heavily in the creaking shell. _ He floundered about and fell into, a sitting posture on the bottom, his short, fat legs extended, a cushion under him and another .it his back against a thwart. The giiide pushed off, leaped in with graceful ease, sat on the wicker seat, above and, facing the other man, took up his paddle and drove the canoe forward with noiseless, perfect strokes. It was planned to go half a dozen miles up the lake, spend the night in a log camp, and set out early in the morning across country for a trout stream of repute. As the canoe slid over the glassy waters of the inlet, like a, beautiful woman gliding over the polished floor of a ballroom, the fish were leaping near the lily-pad, and a thrush's voice sdunded magically from the leafy shore. A rope of pearls driprjed from the clean blade of the : paddle and dissolved m the silvery swirl behind. The sun cast lengthening shadows over, the western mountain. .. • . "This is 0.K., guide," remarked tiir passenger, puffing a cigar, his chubby, hands on the sides of the canoe. "How is it outside?" "She's rippling up a little, 'sir. We may. have a handful of wind." ''What do you call a handful?" "Not enough to.bother us, sir." The channel of the inlet receded. There were no more lily-pads and eye-reached depths. The widening waters of tho lake were streaked and rippled by soft ■ gusts that seemed to float down from the green battlements above. " The gentle music of the ripple against the side of the canoe mingled with the iamt] sibilanco of the forest-leaves. "Ames—"

"Yes, sir." The ash on J. Thornleigh Wcldon's cigar had accumulated, but lio did not' let co the canoe sides to remove": it. "Ames, I don't mind telling you that this is my first trip in a canoe in a good many years. I am a very busy man, with large interests, and I have only taken short vacations, generally to places like Palm Beach, Carlsbad, and Monte Carlo. Now, I just closed up a big deal on the Street, and I thought I'd take my doctor's advice to go off in the woods and get. a genuine rest." "Yes,, sir," said the guide, a statue swaying at the waist, his bare forearms, hairy and corded, swelling in muscular accompaniment to the rhythmic sweep of his paddle. "I have had almost too many interests," resumed the passenger, neglecting to straighten the vizor cap which a puff of wind had caused to slip over his eye. "I am known as the most all-round business man in New York. That is to say, I am a manufacturer —an employer of labor a banker, a general capitalist, sometimes a speculator. Quite an all-round man." "Yes, sir," said the guide, and, as though attempting to amend an inadequate response, added: "I seen your name in the papers." "About my nervy deals in Zinc preferred, eh? Yes, I had that crowd '

afraid of my shadow. Fear is a great f, .thing, Ames. Make- the other fellow g afraid and you win. Cash is your am- r munition, but fear—" v The canoe swerved in an extra gust \ of wind. A few wavelets slapped the 0 cedar-canvas shell with a hollow, drum- s like sound. . r c "I don't like this, Ames," said -Mr \ Weldon. the visible part of his red, t puffy face in steady rhythm. 1 •■lt's all, right, sir," reassured the impassive-faced guide, his keen, I lujsh 5 eyes scanning lake and sky, wh.ie Jus , p'addle moved in steady rhythm. _ ] "Don't these things ever capsize. "Not if thev're handled right." His 1 thoughts were'with Annie —Annie in the - hospital down river, where he had taken , her last week, suffering with a malady which no herbs of mountain or valley could alleviate. "I can't swim, Ames," announced the passenger, and he clutched the gunwales of the carioe with such force that the color went out of his fat-imbedded knuckles. "You won't have to, sir," "Is that Canada over there?" "Yes, sir. On. the right. This'is the boundary." „ . -,,. "H'm. I thought of' going.there several times.- -1 wouldn't mind being there right now.". ~ "■*""'>;■. They were reaching the-centre of the, lake, a long, serpentine .jewel-of-blue with opalescent flashes, caught from the red "sinking sun. ' Black, elephantine shapes of boulders rose out' of water near the shores, which were lined with the fantastic .silver-gray arms of dead, half-submerged trees. Behind the ' boulders and the "dry-ki" stood serried ranks-of „white-linibed birches with green "tresses, whispering a multiplied, enchanted answer to the ripples on the lake. Out of the green tresses a fluty Voice sounded a phrase of triple notes. Gaily, with the abandon of first love and innocence, other voices .on both shores took up the phrase in solo, quartet, and 'chorus, until it went floating and shimmering into the distance up the Jake. ■ • :.'- "I can't stand for this, Ames." An- 4 , other wavelet had struck the bow of the'canoe and'splashed. Mr Weldon's hand."Can't we go ashore—to Canada-rand walk the "rest of the way?" "We could hardly get -through that dry-ki," replied the guide,' glancing-at the darkening sky, "and if. we did,- it" would take all night to walk through the woods." "I can't stand for this —I'm not used to it,", mumbled the other. "We're moio than half iva\ r to the camp," sai'd Amos. "When we round that point yonder you can see it." "Can't you keejj closer" to shore?" "There's too many boulders near shoie " The passenger, falling silent, kept his rigid clutch on the gunwales while I his outstretched feet vibrated against the guide's moccasins. Around the point, marked by,a light-ning-blasted pine, a cross breeze iva« stirring up a choppy sea. The canoe reeled and leaped at the first onset, and its frail sides trembled under the blows of the waves. Spray flew over the craft. "Ames," groaned the passenger, "pu't mo ashore." The man with the paddle said no- ' thing. "I older you to put me ashore! ' The guide was manoeuvring against the broadside rollers that came from the squally east. l"Amos" —the tone was of coaxing tenor —"I'll give you a thousand dollars to get:me on land." Without losing a stroke or looking at his employer, now huddled on the end of Ms spine with his neck against the thwait and his knees bent, Ames made stern reply: "You shut up. Put pour legs down." The financier obejed. •'Stop shaking your legs," added the guide, and this command, for a time, was followed. The squall developed in the cold afterglow of sunset. A leaden light rested on the whitccapped waters. Amid the dcen shadows oi the shore, the silver-gray arms of tice-wrecks loomed spectrally—they seemed crawling xentaclcs'of the black-bodied elephantine monsters that wallowed in the spumy sea. . A wailing, laughing shriek reverberated in tho chstince-and was bandied back and foith across the lake It was a half-human ululation, pitiful, sinister, soul-chilling. This madness, cbabolicallv eounterpointcd by the mocking spirits of tne-4iDls, died away in the tumult of wind and wave. "What was that?" hoarsely demanded uhe huddled passenger The guide did not answer. "Tell mo!" shrieked the other hysteiicallv. "Didn't, you hear that noise?" "Yes, I heard it ' - "WhaL was it?" "That was a loon." " J m "Oh!" groaned the financier with ieliof. "Amos —say, Ames! Ames! What are our chances of getting'out of this alivo?" "Thev're even just now, replica the guide as the canoe shipped half a pailful of water. "Ames, I'll give you ten thousand dollars to get me out alive. All •hara cash. I caivf afford to pass out this wav There are too many interests dependent on me. I have to support the market—thousands of men look to me for a living. I-have a family—l have too mnnv interests —Ames, don't let me pas,s out! You'll have ten thousand the minute we land. I have big inteiests. I have a family—l am needed —" His terrorshaken tones went ott in babbling incoherence. The guide had been thinking of his own family—of his wife, ill in the hospital -down-river. To save 'his fear-crazed passenger with himself, once the canoe capsized, as it seemed, likely to do under Weldon's antics, would: be next to impossible. His wife needed him. He knew he could save himself alone. Me could swim through the wild water to shore. 'He had the strength to battle with the'waves. But to save this whimpering creature — "Lie down! Put your head under that thwart!" suddenly commanded Ames. , , . .1 "What for? There'r water m the bottom," moaned the passenger. 111 be trapned if we go over." . "Get"down on your back, or 111 brain vou with this paddle!" thundered! „he woodsman. „,, , . ' . "Would vou kill me?" whimpered Weldon 'as lie cowered back and tried to obey the command. . "I'd kill mjself if I had your spirit," retorted the guide, and.. dropping his paddle for .an instant, ho'.seized the other's legs and hauled him flat on the bottom of the canoe.'.'Now, -keep quiet. You "talk about -your interests. You said -you* was an all-round man. You don't.want-to die. • With that spirit and carcase of-yours, what in thunder have you got to live',-for?" • The woodsman's- remarks -were more in the way .-of soliloquy than address. As a peroration,' 'while" steering with one. hand, he tossed a, blanket and a cushion'over" Weldon's. head. ' "Maybe you can -keep .still' now'. 11 you don't I'll do something different. , Ames turned his attention to the combat with nature. , , The lake was"in a mood of treachery, and riot such as he. had' never known before. She, seemed intent on overrwheJming 'the .freighted craft. Short,, choppy seas alternated with long rollers that sped through the darkness m flank attack. The "canoe pitched, whirled, pirouetted, and sometimes slid careening ■into-,'a, ravine -between two watery | heights. ' . - It K was' impossible to make headw a> , towards the goal, located beneath a mountain gash that appeared famth on the eastern sky-line. Ames, high on his wicker seat, Jus body automatically balancing to an ounce' oi deviation mi gravitv, watched kecnl\ lor the approach of ilic craft\ rolW-.. B\ .1 few deft strokes of the paddlo be turned the nose of tl)<3 canoe to meet them and rise over them. His paddle was a duellist's sword, now carelessly, lightly held, now flashing to .right or left in decisive thrust. It guarded, it parried, it slashed. The canoe leaped and whirled as much from the impulse of the paddle as from the assaults of the enraged seas. "My heaven, we are going under! I am drowning!" This came" in a gurgling shriek from the passenger, who had been squirming and writhing on his back on the bottom of, the c.inoe —a cargo which caused many a daugerous lurch. The canoe had shipped considerable water, which rolled back and forth and occasionally .swirled over, the guide's ankles and the passengers hend. '_ |

Ames stepped forward, used the paddle with one hand to combat ths rollers.

>r which his eyes strained through the loom, and with the other hand h(i ipidly scooped up the bilge in Weldon':* izor cap and tossed it overboard. Hien most of the water had been bailed, ut, he groped among Weldon's possesions behind and under him and threw verboard a valise and other things, ut retained a jointed fishing-rod. Ho hen opened the case and took out the leavy butt-end of the rod. "What are you doing to me?'' creamed Weldon, attempting to rise inder the thwart, as he felt the guide's land working at his right foot. "I'm going to rope you down, so you von't squiggle like this bilge," replied :he guide. "I'll hog-tie you for your jwn good—which ain't much." • . Weldon entreated, begged, whimpered. "Don't tie me down! I won't move. [ swear to Heaven I won't move. I'll give you ten thousand dollars. 111 give "you anything you . ask. For Heaven's sake," give me a chance for iny life. Don't let mo drown. For Heaven sake, save me!" - , . Ames made no verbal answer, but as the passenger's head loomed up between the thwarts he leaned forward and diove Ins right fist to the poiHt of Weldon's 3aw. The hnanciei's body resumed its recumbent position with astonishing, if not instantaneous celerity, and did not move in the slightest dp gree for a considerable time thereafter. It was, technically, a clean knock-out The dangerous passenger was transformed into safe and useful ballast, i "They don't seem to make such, men m the city anv more," soliloquised the woodsman as he parried and slashed j,he waves with his paddle. '"But ,1 don t know as they ever did'. .Maybe, it ain t necessary. Money~is what counts there. It's all "being soft .and "cunning. .They he and cheat for a living. J You poor miserable, critter, "w,ith O'our big' terests—if I had a son born'to me li.ce , you are, I'd-shoot him * through jLhu head." '_■>.' After an "all-night battle with J the. storm,-under the light of a veiled moon —truces, skirmishes, fierce -onslaughts, moments of utter .peril from submerged rocks and drifting dry-ki, -Ames-brougnt the canoe at dawn to the foot ot the lake. , He helped out his employer, Who had spoken little and moved less since recovering consciousness, aud half carried him to a loom in the inn. „ It was the next day that lemh Weldon, - a little pale but refresh3dA>r much sleep and food, garbed m a business suit, with a peail pin in Jivs scaif and a gold chain across his waistcoat, sat in a chair on the inn porch and summoned the "guide before him. » "Ames, I am 'going to take the tn elve-thirtr-six. -It's a through express, hut I've wired the.geneial manager to have her stop for mc. >I am going' back to civilisation." "Yes. sir," said the guide respccifullv, hat in hand. "Will vou have a cigar, Ames-; Don't smolce 0 I don't know whether I like you or not, Ames. But -1 think I'll give you a job if you come down to New Yoik." / i ... - "Thank vou,-sir," replied the guide. 'lt's difficult to get trustworthy men these days, and I think you're one. of them—though your methods are a'little rough and you' take awful—er —responsibilities. Ames, how did y I act in thai, storm —that is, for a man not used to that sort of thing?" . . The guide thought of Annie m the hospital, and of the things she needed and. that money would buy for her. "You acted veiy fauly well, sir, he said, while his lean, tanned cheeks deepened in color. Mr Weldon's face likewise reddened. "Well, here's a yellow-spot to pay you for your time and trouble." The guide took the hundred-dollar .bill with unconcealed gratitude and 1 exultation ' How much it meant for Annie' He would go down the river tomorrow and see her. "And remember, that's not all," said the financier with growing complacence, slightlv marred by the thought of the absurdly laige sum he had promised in recompense for the saving of his life. "I'll recommend you to my friends when they come up heie And if you ever run shoit of change, wire me Don't write —wire. There's my card." . "I can't thank you enough, sir," stammered the guide. "Of course I know that a man like you doesn't talk," said Mr Weldon, as if in afterthought "If there should be anything to suggest, talk or gossip—" "I never talk, sir," assured the guide heartily. ' "You can say I was called away on business." ' I Mr Weldon_rubbed the point;of his chm, which was a trifle discolored, thoughtfully. j, "Man to man, Ames, he said 1 , tonally, "I am glad to have met you l . You may carry my things to the station. But we'll shake hands now and say good-bye." "Good-bye sir," said the guide, and he pressed the other's soft, fat hand with unfeigned-fervor,'almost affection.