The Tent Dwellers. Albert Bigelow Paine

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СКАЧАТЬ a sort of savage dance—perhaps as a preparation for war. At first I made it out to be a counterpart of pictures I had seen of Robinson Crusoe on his desert island. Then I discovered that it wore wide spectacles and these in the fading sunlight sent forth a familiar glare. So it was Eddie, after all, and no edged tool had touched hair or beard since April. I understood, now, why he had not met me at the station.

Chapter Four

       Table of Contents

      Now, the day is at hand, prepare, prepare—

       Make ready the boots and creel,

       And the rod so new and the fly-book, too,

       The line and the singing reel.

Chapter Four

       Table of Contents

      

"Eddie's room and contents … was a marvel and a revelation."

      Eddie's room and contents, with Eddie in the midst of them, was a marvel and a revelation. All the accouterments of former expeditions of whatever sort, all that he had bought for this one, all that I had shipped from week to week, were gathered there. There were wading boots and camp boots and moccasins and Dutch bed-slippers and shoepacks—the last-named a sort of Micmac Indian cross between a shoe and a moccasin, much affected by guides, who keep them saturated with oil and wear them in the water and out—there were nets of various sizes and sorts, from large minnow nets through a line of landing nets to some silk head nets, invented and made by Eddie himself, one for each of us, to pull on day or night when the insect pests were bad. There was a quantity of self-prepared ointment, too, for the same purpose, while of sovereign remedies, balms and anodynes for ills and misfortunes, Eddie's collection was as the sands of the sea. Soothing lotions there were for wounds new and old; easing draughts for pains internal and external; magic salves such as were used by the knights of old romance, Amadis de Gaul and others, for the instant cure of ghastly lacerations made by man or beast, and a large fresh bottle of a collodion preparation with which the victim could be painted locally or in general, and stand forth at last, good as new—restored, body, bones and skin. In addition there was a certain bottle of the fluid extract of gelsemium, or something like that, which was recommended for anything that the rest of the assortment could do, combined. It was said to be good for everything from a sore throat to a snake bite—the list of its benefits being recorded in a text-book by which Eddie set great store.

      "Take it, by all means, Eddie," I said, "then you won't need any of the others."

      That settled it. The gelsemium was left behind.

      I was interested in Eddie's rods, leaning here and there on various parcels about the room. I found that the new noibwood, such as I had ordered, was only a unit in a very respectable aggregate—rather an unimportant unit it appeared by this time, for Eddie calmly assured me that the tip had remained set after landing a rather small trout in a nearby stream and that he did not consider the wood altogether suitable for trout rods. Whereupon I was moved to confess the little bamboo stick I had bought in Boston, and produced it for inspection. I could see that Eddie bristled a bit as I uncased it and I think viewed it and wiggled it with rather small respect. Still, he did not condemn it utterly and I had an impulse to confess the other things, the impossible little scale-wing flies, the tin whistle and the Jock Scott with two hooks. However, it did not seem just the psychological moment, and I refrained.

      As for Eddie's flies, viewed together, they were a dazzling lot. There were books and books of them—American, English, Scotch and what not. There was one book of English dry-flies, procured during a recent sojourn abroad, to be tried in American waters. One does not dance and jiggle a dry-fly to give it the appearance of life—of some unusual creature with rainbow wings and the ability to wriggle upstream, even against a swift current. The dry-fly is built to resemble life itself, color, shape and all, and is cast on a slow-moving stream where a trout is seen to rise, and allowed to drift with the gently flowing current exactly over the magic spot. All this Eddie explained to me and let me hold the book a little time, though I could see he did not intend to let me use one of the precious things, and would prefer that I did not touch them.

      He was packing now and I wandered idly about this uncatalogued museum of sporting goods. There was a heap of canvas and blankets in one corner—a sleeping bag, it proved, with an infinite number of compartments, or layers; there were hats of many shapes, vests of many fabrics, coats of many colors. There were things I had seen before only in sporting goods windows; there were things I had never seen before, anywhere; there were things of which I could not even guess the use. In the center of everything were bags—canvas and oil-skin receptacles, vigorously named "tackle bag," "wardrobe," "war bag" and the like—and into these the contents of the room were gradually but firmly disappearing, taking their pre-destined place according to Eddie's method—for, after all, it was a method—and as I looked at Eddie, unshaven for weeks, grizzled and glaring, yet glowing with deep kindliness and the joy of anticipation, I could think of nothing but Santa Claus, packing for his annual journey that magic bag which holds more and ever more, and is so deep and so wide in its beneficence that after all the comforts and the sweets of life are crowded within, there still is room for more a-top. Remembering my own one small bag which I had planned to take, with side pockets for tackle, and a place between for certain changes of raiment, I felt my unimportance more and more, and the great need of having an outfit like Eddie's—of having it in the party, I mean, handy like, where it would be easy to get hold of in time of need. I foresaw that clothes would want mending; also, perhaps, rods; and it was pleasant to note that my tent-mate would have boxes of tools for all such repairs.

      I foresaw, too, that I should burn, and bruise, and cut myself and that Eddie's liniments and lotions and New Skin would come in handy. It seemed to me that in those bags would be almost everything that human heart could need or human ills require, and when we went below where Del and Charlie, our appointed guides, were crowding certain other bags full of the bulkier stores—packages, cans and bottles, and when I gazed about on still other things—tents, boots, and baskets of camp furniture—I had a sense of being cared for, though I could not but wonder how two small canoes were going to float all that provender and plunder and four strong men.

Chapter Five

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      Then away to the heart of the deep unknown,

       Where the trout and the wild moose are—

       Where the fire burns bright, and tent gleams white

       Under the northern star.

Chapter Five

       Table of Contents

      It was possible to put our canoes into one of the lakes near the hotel and enter the wilderness by water—the Liverpool chain—but it was decided to load boats and baggage into wagons and drive through the woods—a distance of some seventeen uneven miles—striking at once for the true wilderness where the larger trout were said to dwell and the "over Sunday" fisherman does not penetrate. Then for a day or two we would follow waters and portages familiar СКАЧАТЬ