VII
Mr. Langham's five guests arrived somewhat noisily, smoking five longcigars. Lee and Gay, watching the float from a point of vantage, wherethey themselves were free from observation, observed that three of thetrout fishermen were far older than they had led themselves to expect.
"That leaves only one for us," said Gay.
"Why?"
"Can't you see from here that the fifth is an Englishman?"
"Yes," said Lee. "His clothes don't fit, and yet he feels perfectlycomfortable in them."
"It isn't so much the clothes," said Gay, "as the face. The other facesare excited because they have ridden fast in a fast boat, though they'veprobably often done it before. Now he's probably never been in a fastboat in his life till to-day, and yet he looks thoroughly bored."
The Englishman without changing his expression made some remark to theother five. They roared. The Englishman blushed, and looked vaguelytoward a dark-blue mountain that rose with some grandeur beyond thefarther shore of the lake.
"Do you suppose," said Lee, "that what he said was funny or just dumb?"
"I think it was funny," said Gay, "but purely accidental."
"I think I know the other youth," said Lee; "I think I have danced withhim. Didn't Mr. Langham say there was a Renier among his guests?"
"H. L.," Gay assented.
"That's the one," Lee remembered. "Harry Larkins Renier. We have danced.If he doesn't remember, he shall be snubbed. I like the old guy with theMark Twain hair."
"Don't you know _him_? I do. I have seen his picture often. He's theeditor of the _Evening Star_. Won't Arthur be glad!"
"What's his name?"
"Walter Leyden O'Malley. He's the literary descendant of the great Dana.Don't talk to me, child; I know a great deal."
Gay endeavored to assume the look of an encyclopaedia and failed.
"Mr. Langham," said Lee, "mentioned three other names, Alston,Pritchard, and Cox. Which do you suppose is which?"
"I think that Pritchard is the very tall one who looks like a Kentuckycolonel; Cox is the one with the very large face; of course, theEnglishman is Alston."
"I don't."
"We can find out from Maud."
When the new arrivals, escorted by Arthur and Mr. Langham, had left theoffice, Lee and Gay hurried in to look at their signatures and toconsult Maud as to identities.
The Kentucky-colonel-looking man proved to be Alston. Cox had the largeface, and the Englishman--John Arthur Merrivale Pritchard, as was to beexpected--wrote the best hand. Mr. O'Malley, the famous editor, wrotethe worst. His signature looked as if it had been traced by an inky wormwrithing in agony.
"Tell us at once," Gay demanded, "what they are like."
Maud regarded her frolicsome sisters with inscrutable eyes, and said:
"At first, you think that Mr. Cox is a heartless old cynic, but when youget to know him really well--I remember an instance that occurred in theearly sixties----"
"Oh, dry up!" said Lee. "Are they nice and presentable, like fat old SamLangham?"
"The three old ones," said Maud, "made me think of three very young boysjust loose from school. Messrs. Renier and Pritchard, however, seem moreused to holidays. There is, however, a complication. All five wish to gofishing as soon as they can change into fishing clothes, and therearen't enough guides to go around."
"What's the trouble?" asked Gay eagerly.
"Bullard," Maud explained, "has sent word that his wife is having ababy, and Benton has gone up to Crotched Lake West to see if the ice isout of it. That leaves only three guides to go around. Benton oughtn'tto have gone. Nobody told him to. But he once read the Declaration ofIndependence, and every now and then the feeling comes over him that hemust act accordingly."
"But," exclaimed Lee, "what's the matter with Gay and me?"
"Nothing, I hope," said Maud; "you look well. I trust you feel well."
"We want to be guides," said Gay; "we want to be useful. Hitherto we'vedone nothing to help. Mary works like a slave in the kitchen; you here.Eve will never leave the laundry once the wash gets big. Phyllis has hergarden, in which things will begin to grow by and by, but we--we have noexcuse for existence--none whatever. Now, I could show Mr. Renier wherethe chances of taking fish are the best."
"No," said Lee firmly; "I ought to guide him. It's only fair. He onceguided me--I've always remembered--bang into a couple who outweighed ustwo to one, and down we went."
"Mary will hardly approve of you youngsters going on long expeditionswith strange young men," Maud was quite sure; "and, of course, Arthurwon't."
Lee and Gay began to sulk.
At that moment Arthur came into the office.
"Halloo, you two!" he said. "Been looking for you, and even shouting.The fact is, we're short of guides, and Mary and I think----"
Lee and Gay burst into smiles.
"What did we tell you, Maud? Of course, we will. There are no wiserguides in this part of the woods."
"That," said Arthur, "is a fact. The older men looked alarmed when Isuggested that two of my sisters--you see, they've always hadnative-born woodsmen and even Indians----"
"Then," said Lee, "we are to have the guileless youths. I speak forRenier."
"Meanie," said Gay.
"Lee ought to have first choice," said Arthur. "It's always beensupposed that Lee is your senior by a matter of twenty minutes."
"True or not," said Gay, "she looks it. Then I'm to guide theEnglishman."
"If you don't mind." Arthur regarded her, smiling. He couldn't help it.She was _so_ pretty. "And I'd advise you not to be too eager to showoff. Mr. Pritchard has hunted and fished more than all of us puttogether."
"That little pink-faced snip!" exclaimed Gay. "I'll sure see how much heknows."
Half an hour later she was rowing him leisurely in the direction ofPlacid Brook, and examining his somewhat remarkable outfit withwondering eyes. This was not difficult, since his own eyes, which wereclear brown, and very shy, were very much occupied in looking over thecontents of the large-tackle box.
"If you care to rig your rod," said Gay presently, "and cast about as wego, you might take something between here and the brook."
"Do you mean," he said, "that you merely throw about you at random, andthat it is possible to take fish?"
"Of course," said she--"when they are rising."
"But then the best one could hope for," he drawled, "would beindiscriminate fish."
"Just what do you mean by that?"
"Why!"--and this time he looked up and smiled very shyly--"if you wereafter elephant and came across a herd, would you pick out a bull with afine pair of tusks, or would you fire indiscriminately into the thick ofthem, and perhaps bring down the merest baby?"
"I never heard of picking your fish," said Gay.
"Dear me," he commented, "then you have nearly a whole lifetime ofdelightful study before you!"
He unslung a pair of field-glasses, focussed them, and began to studythe surface of the placid lake, not the far-off surface but the surfacewithin twenty or thirty feet. Then he remarked:
"Your flies aren't greatly different from ours. I think we shall findsomething nearly right. One can never tell. The proclivities of troutand char differ somewhat. I have never taken char."
"You don't think you are after char now, do you?" exclaimed Gay."Because, if so--this lake contains bass, trout, lake-trout, sunfish,shiners, and bullheads, but no char."
Pritchard smiled a little sadly and blushed. He hated to put peopleright.
"Your brook-trout," he said, "your _salmo fontinalis_, isn't a trout atall. He's a char."
Gay put her back into the rowing with some temper. She felt that theEnglishman had insulted the greatest of all American institutions. Therepartee which sprang to her lips was somewhat feeble.
"If a trout is a char," she said angrily, "then an onion is a fruit."
To her astonishment, Mr. Pritchard began to laugh. He dropped everythingand gave his whole attention to it.
He laughed till the tears came andthe delicate guide boat shook from stem to stern. Presently the germ ofhis laughing spread, and Gay came down with a sharp attack of itherself. She stopped rowing. Two miles off, a loon, that most exclusivelaugher of the North Woods, took fright, dove, and remained under forten minutes.
The young people in the guide boat looked at each other through smartingtears.
"I am learning fast," said Gay, "that you count your fish before youcatch them, that trout are char, and that Englishmen laugh at otherpeople's jokes."
She rowed on.
"Don't forget to tell me when you've chosen your fish," she remarked.
"You shall help me choose," he said; "I insist. I speak for athree-pounder."
"The event of a lifetime!"
"Why, Miss Gay," he said, "it's all the event of a lifetime. The Camp,the ride in the motor-boat, the wonderful, wonderful breakfast, waterteeming with fish, the woods, and the mountains--millions of years agoit was decreed that you and I should rock a boat with laughter in themidst of New Moon Lake. And yet you speak of a three-pounder as theevent of a lifetime! My answer is a defiance. We shall take one _salmofontinalis_--one wily char. He shall not weigh three pounds; he shallweigh a trifle more. Then we shall put up our tackle and go home to amerry dinner."
"Mr. Pritchard," said Gay, "I'll bet you anything you like that youdon't take a trout--or a char, if you like--that will weigh three poundsor over. I'll bet you ten to one."
"Don't do that," he said; "it's an even shot. What will you bet?"
"I'll bet you my prospective dividends for the year," she said,"against----"
"My prospective title?"
He looked rather solemn, but laughter bubbled from Gay.
"It's a good sporting proposition," said Pritchard. "It's a very soundtitle--old, resonant--and unless you upset us and we drown, tolerablycertain to be mine to pay--in case I lose."
"I don't bet blindly," said Gay. "What is the title?"
"I shall be the Earl of Merrivale," said he; "and if I fail this day totake a char weighing three pounds or over, you will be the Countess ofMerrivale."
"Dear me!" said Gay, "who ever heard of so much depending on a merefish? But I don't like my side of the bet. It's all so sudden. I don'tknow you well enough, and you're sure to lose."
"I'll take either end of the bet you don't like," said Mr. Pritchardgravely. "If I land the three-pounder, you become the countess; if Idon't, I pay you the amount of your dividends for the year. Is thatbetter?"
"Much," smiled Gay; "because, with the bet in this form, there ispractically no danger that either of us will lose anything. My dividendsprobably won't amount to a row of pins, and you most certainly will notland so big a fish."
Meanwhile they had entered the mouth of Placid Brook. The surface wasdimpling--rings became, spread, merged in one another, and were not. Thefish were feeding.
"Let us land in the meadow," said Mr. Pritchard, his brown eyes clearand sparkling, "and spy upon the enemy."
"Are you going to leave your rod and things in the boat?"
"For the present--until we have located our fish."
They landed, and he advanced upon the brook by a detour, stealthily,crouching, his field-glasses at attention. Once he turned and spoke toGay in an authoritative whisper:
"Try not to show above the bushes."