Ned, the son of Webb: What he did.. Stoddard William Osborn

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СКАЧАТЬ were larger, but which did not indicate wind.

      "I'd give something for a catspaw," he said, remembering another nautical term. "I needn't furl the mainsail. She can drift to looard, if she wants to, while I try for some fish. If it's true that this lake hasn't any bottom, it won't pay to cast anchor. There isn't cable enough in that coil to do any good."

      He ceased rowing. He put his joint rod together, and fitted on his reel, ready for sport. The bait question was decided against worms and in favour of grasshoppers, with regret that he had so few.

      "Now," he said, "I don't much care whether it's to be a bass or a pickerel."

      No choice was given him, for in only a minute or so more a handsome yellow perch came over the side of the boat to account for one grasshopper.

      "That fellow'll weigh a pound, more or less," he said. "I don't want any pumpkinseeds, though."

      That, however, was the kind of fish he pulled in next. Shortly afterward he had the usual unpleasantness belonging to the unhooking of a large, fat, slippery-skinned bullhead. He was really making a very good beginning indeed, considering what was the established reputation of Green Lake.

      "Uncle Jack said it was fished out," he said to himself. "I guess there are more shiners and pumpkinseeds than anything else. Hullo! Here comes a big one!"

      What seemed to be a tremendous tug at his hook held on vigorously as he hauled in his line. The excitement of that strong bite made him tingle all over.

      "Pickerel!" he shouted. "Or a big bass, or maybe it's a pike or a lake trout. What will Uncle Jack say, now?"

      In a few moments more he was sadly replying, on behalf of his uncle, "Nothing but a cod-lamper eel!"

      Soaked bush branches and pond weed are hard to pull in, and they are good for nothing in a frying-pan. A fisherman's gloomiest disappointments come to him in the landing of them.

      Another grasshopper was put on, and another cast was made. The bullhead flopped discontentedly on the bottom of the boat. So did the perch, now and then, but there were no other signs of fish life during the next half-hour, with the sun all the while growing hotter.

      "I'll stick my rod," thought Ned, "and throw out another line, with a worm. Then I'll read till I get a bite. I think it's coming on to blow a little. I can see signs of weather."

      So he could, really. Hardly were his two hooks and lines in the water before what some people romantically term a zephyr came gently breathing along the placid lake. It soon grew even strong enough to make itself felt by the drooping sail, but Ned remarked, as he lifted his eyes from his book illustrations:

      "That canvas doesn't bend worth a cent. I needn't take in any reef just now. Let her spin along. Hullo! The boat's beginning to move!"

      He felt more and more sure of that while he again bent over the folio, opened out upon the middle seat, with an old starch box behind it for his accommodation. The breeze had come, what there was of it, but he shortly forgot all about winds and fishing, while he turned page after page of that book, and took in more and more of the meaning of the pictures. The sail was now filled well. There were larger and larger wavelets on the lake, but there came no fish-bites to interrupt Ned's reading. He had no idea for how long a time he had been sailing on, without noticing anything whatever around him. At last, however, the wind grew strong enough to turn one of his book-leaves for him, and he once more raised his head.

      "I declare!" he exclaimed. "This bit of a gale is freshening. I'll haul on the main sheet, and bring her head to the wind. She's leaning over a little too much. If a gust or a squall should come on, she might turn turtle."

      He evidently knew what it was best to do under such circumstances, and his next exclamation was uttered with even stronger emphasis. He was, of course, doing something in the steering line with his paddle-rudder, and he had taken occasion to look back along the wake of his dashing scow.

      "What's this? Who ever knew that Green Lake was so wide? I can't see the other shore, toward our house. There isn't another boat in sight, either. If I expect to get home to-night, it's about time I went about, and headed southerly. This is a curious piece of business. I'll take in my lines, right away."

      He shut up his book at once. There was even an anxious tone in his voice, and an exceedingly puzzled look upon his face. It was such, perhaps, as the captain of a line-of-battle-ship might wear upon finding his huge fighting machine in unknown or difficult navigation. Any experienced nautical man would have been able to comprehend Ned's unpleasant situation. That is, perhaps so, if it had been at all possible to know what was the precise nature of the circumstances.

      The lines came in fast enough and Ned knew how to tack, if that were indeed the correct thing for him to do next. Now, however, came a second discovery, almost as perplexing as the first. Behind him was a wide waste of water without a visible shore, but he was by no means out of sight of land when he turned to look ahead. The northerly shore of the lake was near, and it was rapidly drawing nearer.

      "This is tremendous!" he remarked, and he took a tin cup out of his tackle-box, expressing a hope that the lake water might not prove too warm to drink.

      He leaned over the side of the boat, still gazing shoreward, scooped the cup full, and began to drink like a very thirsty fellow.

      "Faugh! Phew!" he suddenly sputtered, and a vigorous, choking, coughing spell followed. "What's this? Salt water? How did Green Lake get salted!"

      He tasted again, as if to make sure, and then he looked around him utterly bewildered. The shore was all the while drawing nearer, and the water in his cup was of the peculiar brackish flavour that belongs to the great seas.

      "Mountains?" he murmured. "I knew there were high hills over this way, but I never was told of anything like this. Right along shore, too. Why, that cliff there's as high as a church steeple. Higher. That's an eagle, too, circling around over the top of it."

      Was one side of Green Lake salt and the other fresh, or had it in some mysterious way broken through and become connected with the Atlantic? It even occurred to him to wonder, vaguely, if the lake had joined the ocean in such a way that ships, the Kentucky, for instance, could ever come steaming in, firing salutes and astonishing all the country people. His head was all a buzz of perplexing questions, but he managed to keep hold of his rudder, and speed onward toward the land. In fact, the wind was now very good, and the punt was running rapidly.

      "Yonder," he remarked aloud, "is the mouth of a kind of inlet. Those cliffs on each side of it are awful. They're almost perpendicular. It makes a fellow think of some of those pictures of Norway fiords, in the book. The best thing I can do is to steer right in and find out what it is. Tell you what, though, I've sailed farther than I'd any idea of."

      He still had some distance to go before reaching the opening between the tall cliffs, and his eyes were busy. He tried the water yet again, curiously.

      "I know what sea water is," he thought. "I tried it once, out in New York Bay. This tastes salter than that did. Hullo! Those are porpoises, tumbling around out yonder. I've seen porpoises before, off Long Island, when I went bluefishing with Uncle Jack. I wish he were here to tell me what all this amounts to. He knows a heap."

      Perfectly stupendous were those beetling promontories between which the boat sailed in. They must have been several hundreds of feet in height. Here and there, in the clefts and crevices of their rugged sides and along their summits, grew gigantic pines and fir-trees.

      "I'll put away the book," he said, "in the locker under the back seat. I'm going ashore. I want to find somebody that СКАЧАТЬ