George Baldwin Potter is a purist. That is to say, he either takes trout on a dry fly or he does not take them at all. He belongs to a number of fishing clubs, any member of which might acquire his neighbor’s wife, beat his children, or poison a dog and still cast a fly, in all serenity, upon club waters; but should he impale on a hook a lowly though succulent worm and immerse the creature in those same waters it would be better that he send in his resignation at once, sooner than face the shaken committee that would presently wait upon him.
George had become fixed in my mind as a bachelor. This, or course, was a mistake. I am continually forgetting that purists rush into marriage when approaching or having just passed the age of forty. The psychology of this is clear.
For twenty years, let us say, a purist’s life is completely filled by his efforts to convert all reasonable men to his own particular method of taking trout. He thinks, for example, that a man should not concern himself with more than a dozen types of standard flies. The manner of presenting them is the main consideration. Take any one of these flies, then, and place, by means of an eight-foot rod, a light, tapered line, and a mist-colored leader of reasonable length, on fast water—if you want trout. Of course, if you want to listen to the birds and look at the scenery, fish the pools with a long line and an eight-foot leader. Why, it stands to reason that—
The years go by as he explains these vital facts patiently, again and again, to Smith and Brown and Jones. One wet, cold spring, after fighting a muddy stream all day, he re-explains for the better part of an evening and takes himself, somewhat wearily upstairs. The damp and chill of the room at whatever club he may be fishing is positively tomblike. He can hear the rain drumming on the roof and swishing against the windows. The water will be higher than ever tomorrow, he reflects, as he puts out the lights and slides between the icy sheets. Steeped to the soul in cheer less dark, he recalls numbly that when he first met Smith and Brown and Jones they were fishing the pools with a long line. That was, let’s see—fifteen—eighteen—twenty years ago. Then he must be forty. It isn’t possible! Yes, it is a fact that Smith and Brown and Jones are still fishing the pools with a long line.
In the first faint light of dawn he falls into an uneasy, muttering slumber. The dark hours between have been devoted to intense thought and a variety of wiggles which have not succeeded in keeping the bed-clothes against his shoulder blades.
Some time within the next six months you will remember that you have for gotten to send him a wedding present.
George, therefore, having arrived at his fortieth birthday, announced his engagement shortly there-after. Quite by chance I ran across his bride-to-be and himself a few days before the ceremony, and joined them at lunch. She was a blonde in the early twenties, with wide blue eyes and a typical rose-and-white complexion. A rushing, almost breathless account of herself, which she began the moment we were seated, was curious, I thought. It was as though she feared an interruption at any moment. I learned that she was an only child, born and reared in Greater New York; that her family had recently moved to New Rochell; that she had been shopping madly for the past two weeks; that she was nearly dead, but that she had some adorable things.
At this point George informed me that they would spend their honeymoon at a certain fishing club in Maine. He then proceeded to describe the streams and lakes in that section at some length—during the rest of the luncheon, as a matter of fact. His fiancee, who had fallen into a wordless abstraction, only broke her silence with a vague murmur as we parted.
Owing to this meeting I did not forget to send a wedding present. I determined that my choice should please both George and his wife through the happy years to come.
If I had had George to consider, I could have settled the business in two minutes at a sporting-goods store. Barred from these for obvious reasons, I spent a long day in a thoroughly exhausting search. Late in the afternoon I decided to abandon my hopeless task. I had made a tremendous effort and failed. I would simply buy a silver doodad and let it go at that.
As I staggered into a store with the above purpose in view, I passed a show case devoted to fine china, and halted as my eyes fell on a row of fish plates backed by art fully rumpled blue velvet. The plates proved to be hand painted. On each plate was one of the different varieties of trout, curving up through green depths to an artificial fly just dropping on the surface of the water.
In an automatic fashion I indicated the plates to a clerk, paid for them, gave him my card and the address, and fed from the store. Some time during the next twenty-four hours it came to me that George Potter was not among my nearest and dearest. Yet the unbelievable sum I had left with that clerk in exchange for those fish plates could be justified in no other way.
I thought this fact accounted for the sort of frenzy with which George flung himself upon me when next we met, some two months later. I had been weekending in the country and encountered him in the Grand Central Station as I emerged from the lower level. For a long moment he wrung my hand in silence, gazing almost feverishly into my face. At last he spoke:
“Have you got an hour to spare?”
It occurred to me that it would take George an hour at least to describe his amazed delight at the splendor of my gift. The clock above Information showed that it was 12:45. I therefore suggested that we lunch together.
He, too, glanced at the clock, verified its correctness by his watch, and seized me by the arm.
“All right,” he agreed, and was urging me toward the well-filled and somewhat noisy station cafe before I grasped his intention and tried to suggest that we go elsewhere. His hand only tightened on my arm.
“It’s all right,” he said; “good flood, quick service— you’ll like it.”
He all but dragged me into the cafe and steered me to a table in the corner. I lifted my voice above an earnest clatter of gastronomical utensils and made a last effort.
“The Biltmore’s just across the street.”
George pressed me into my chair, shoved a menu card at me and addressed the waiter.
“Take his order.” Here he jerked out his watch and consulted it again. “We have forty-eight minutes. Service for one. I shan’t be eating anything; or, no—bring me some coffee—large cup—black.”
Having ordered mechanically, I frankly stared at George. He was dressed, I now observed, with unusual care. He wore a rather dashing gray suit. His tie, which was an exquisite shade of gray-blue, was embellished by a handsome pearl. The handkerchief, appearing above his breast pocket, was of the same delicate gray-blue shade as the tie. His face had been recently and closely shaven, also powdered; but above that smooth whiteness of jowl was a pair of curiously glittering eyes and a damp, beaded brow. This he now mopped with his napkin. “Good God,” said I, “what is it, George?”
His reply was to extract a letter from his inside coat pocket and pass it across the table, his haunted eyes on mine. I took in its few lines at a glance:
“Father has persuaded me to listen to what you call your explanation. I arrive Grand Central 2:45, daylight saving, Monday.” Isabelle.
Poor old George, I thought; some bachelor indiscretion; and now, with his honeymoon scarcely over, blackmail, a lawsuit, heaven only knows what. “Who,” I asked, returning the letter, “is Isabelle?”
To my distress, George again resorted to his napkin. Then, “My wife,” he said.
“Your wife!”
George nodded.
“Been living wither people for the last month. Wish he’d bring that coffee. You don’t happen to have a flask with you?”
“Yes, I have a flask.” George brightened. “But it’s empty. Do you want to tell me about your trouble? Is that why you brought me here?”
“Well, yes,” George admitted. “But the point is—will you stand by me? That’s the main thing. She gets in”—here he consulted his watch—”in forty-five minutes, if the train’s on time.” A sudden panic seemed to seize him. His hand shot across the table and grasped my wrist. “You’ve got to stand by me, old man—act as if you knew nothing. Say you ran into me here and stayed to meet her. I’ll tell you what—say I didn’t’ seem to want you to stay. Kid me about wanting her all to myself, or something like that. Get the point? It’ll give me a chance to sort of—well, you understand.”
“I see what you mean, of course,” I admitted. “Here’s your coffee. Suppose you have some and then tell me what this is all about—if you care to, that is.”
“No sugar, no cream,” said George to the waiter; “just pour it. Don’t stand there waving it about—pour it, pour it!” He attempted to swallow a mouthful of steaming coffee, gurgled frightfully and grabbed his water glass. “Great jumping Jehoshaphat!” he gasped, when he could speak, and glared at the waiter, who promptly moved out into the sea of diners and disappeared among a dozen of his kind.
“Steady, George,” I advised as I transferred a small lump of ice from my glass to his coffee cup.
George watched the ice dissolve, murmured “Idiot” several times, and presently swallowed the contents of the cup in two gulps.
“I had told her,” he said suddenly, “exactly where we were going. She mentioned Narragansett several times—I’ll admit that. Imagine—Narragansett! Of course I bought her fishing things myself. I didn’t buy knickers or woolens or flannel shirts—naturally. You don’t go around buying a girl breeches and underwear before you’re married. It wouldn’t be—well, it isn’t done, that’s all. I got her the sweetest three-ounce rod you ever held in your hand. I’ll bet I could put out sixty feet of line with it against the wind. I got her a pair of English waders that didn’t weigh a pound. They cost me forty-five dollars. The rest of the outfit was just as good. Why, her fly box was a Truxton. I could have bought an American imitation for eight dollars. I know a lot of men who’ll buy leaders for themselves at two dollars apiece and let their wives fish with any kind of tackle. I’ll give you my word I’d have used anything I got for her myself. I sent it all out to be packed with her things. I wanted her to feel that it was her own—not mine. I know a lot of men who give their wives a high-class rod or an imported reel and then fish with it themselves. What time is it?”
“Clock right up there,” I said. But George consulted his watch and used his napkin distressingly again.
“Where was I?”
“You were telling me why you sent her fishing things out to her.”
“Oh, yes! That’s all of that. I simply wanted to show you that from the first I did all any man could do. Ever been in the Cuddiwink district?”
I said that I had not.
“You go in from Buck’s Landing. A lumber tug takes you up to the head of Lake Owonga. Club guides meet you there and put you through in one day—twenty miles by canoe and portage up the west branch of the Penobscot; then nine miles by trail to Lost Pond. The club’s on Lost Pond. Separate cabins, with a main dining and loafing camp, and the best squaretail fishing on earth—both lake and stream. Of course, I don’t fish the lakes. A dry fly belongs on a stream and nowhere else. Let me make it perfectly clear.”
George’s manner suddenly changed. He hunched himself closer to the table, dropped an elbow upon it and lifted an expository finger.
“The dry fly,” he stated, with a new almost combative ring in his voice, “is designed primarily to simulate not only the appearance of the natural insect but its action as well. This action is arrived at through the flow of the current. The moment you move a fly by means of leader you destroy the—
I saw that an interruption was imperative.
“Yes, of course,” I said; “but your wife will be here in—”
It was pitiful to observe George. His new-found assurance did not fee—fee suggests a withdrawal, however swift—it was immediately and totally annihilated. He attempted to pour himself some coffee, take out his watch, look at the clock, and mop his brow with his napkin at one and the same instant.
“You were telling me how to get to Lost Pond,” I suggested.
“Yes, to be sure,” said George. “Naturally you go in light. The things you absolutely have to have— rods, tackle, waders, wading shoes, and so forth, are about all a guide can manage at the portages in addition to the canoe. You pack in extras yourself—change of underclothes, a couple of pairs of socks, and a few toilet articles. You leave a bag or trunk at Buck’s Landing. I explained this to her. I explained it carefully. I told her either a week-end bag or one small trunk. Herb Trescott was my best man. I left everything to him. He saw us on the train and handed me tickets and reservations just before we pulled out. I didn’t notice in the excitement of getting away that he’d given me three trunk checks all stamped ‘Excess.’ I didn’t notice it till the conductor showed up, as a matter of fact. Then I said, ‘Darling, what in heaven’s name have you brought three trunks for?’ She said—I can remember her exact words—’Then you’re not going to Narragansett?’
“I simply looked at her. I was too dumbfounded to speak. At last I pulled myself together and told her in three days we’d be whipping the best squaretail water in the world. I took her hand, I remember, and said, ‘You and I together, sweetheart,’ or something like that.”
George sighed and lapsed into a silence which remained unbroken until his eye happened to encounter the face of the clock. He started and went on:
“We got to Buck’s Landing, by way of Bangor, at six in the evening of the following day. Buck’s Landing is a railroad station with grass growing between the ties, a general store and hotel combined, and a lumber wharf. The store keeps canned peas, pink-and-white candy, and felt boots. The hotel part is—well, it doesn’t matter except that I don’t think I ever saw so many deer heads; a few stuffed trout but mostly deer heads. After supper the proprietor and I got the three trunks up to the largest room: We just got them in and that was all. The tug left for the head of the lake at seven next morning. I explained this to Isabelle. I said we’d leave the trunks there until we came out, and offered to help her unpack the one her fishing things were in. She said, ‘Please go away!’ So I went away. I got out a rod and went down to the wharf. No trout there, I knew; but I thought I’d limber up my wrist. I put on a Cahill Number Fourteen—or was it Sixteen—”
George knitted his brows and stared intently but unseeingly at me for some little time.
“Call it a Sixteen,” I suggested.
George shook his head impatiently and remained concentrated in thought.
“I’m inclined to think it was a Fourteen,” he said at last. “But let it go; it’ll come to me later. At any rate, the place was alive with big chub—a foot long, some of ‘em. I’ll bet I took fifty—threw ‘em back, of course. They kept on rising after it got dark. I’d tell myself I’d go after one more cast. Each time I’d hook a big chub, and—well, you know how the time slips away.
“When I got back to the hotel all the lights were out. I lit matches until I got upstairs and found the door to the room. I’ll never forget what I saw when I opened that door—never! Do you happen to know how many of the kind of things they wear a woman can get into one trunk? Well, she had three and she’d unpacked them all. She had used the bed for the gowns alone. It was piled with them—literally piled; but that wasn’t a starter. Everywhere you looked was a stack of things with ribbons in ‘em. There were enough shoes and stockings for a girl’s school; silk stockings, mind you, and high-heeled shoes and slippers.” Here George consulted clock and watch. “I wonder if that train’s on time,” he wanted to know.
“You have thirty-five minutes, even if it is,” I told him; “go right ahead.”
“Well, I could see something was wrong from her face. I didn’t know what, but I started right in to cheer her up. I told her all about the chub fishing I’d been having. At last she burst into tears. I won’t go into the scene that followed. I’d ask her what was the matter and she’d say, ‘Nothing,’ and cry frightfully. I know a lot of men who would have lost their tempers under the circumstances, but I didn’t; I give you my word. I simply said, ‘There, there,’ until she quieted down. And that isn’t all. After a while she began to show me her gowns. Imagine—at eleven o’clock at night, at Buck’s Landing! She’d hold up a dress and look over the top of it at me and ask me how I liked it, and I’d say it was all right. I know a lot of men who wouldn’t have sat there two minutes.
“At last I said, ‘They’re all all right, darling,’ and yawned. She was holding up a pink dress covered with shiny dingle-dangles, and she threw the dress on the bed and all but had hysterics. It was terrible. In trying to think of some way to quiet her it occurred to me that I’d put her rod together and let her feel the balance of it with the feel I’d bought her—a genuine Fleetwood, mind you—attached. I looked around for her fishing things and couldn’t find them. I’ll tell you why I couldn’t find them.” George paused for an impressive instant to give his next words the full significance due them. “They weren’t there!”
“No?” I murmured weakly.
“No,” said George. “And what do you suppose she said when I questioned her? I can give you her exact words—I’ll never forget them. She said, ‘There wasn’t any room for them.’” Again George paused. “I ask you,” he inquired at last, “I ask you as man to man; what do you think of that?”
I found no adequate reply to this question and George, now thoroughly warmed up, rushed on.
“You’d swear I lost my tempter then, wouldn’t you? Will, I didn’t. I did say something to her later, but I’ll let you be the judge when we come to that. I’ll ask you to consider the circumstances. I’ll ask you to get Old Faithful in your mind’s eye.”
“Old Faithful?” I repeated. “Then you went to the Yellowstone later?”
“Yellowstone! Of course not! Haven’t I told you we were already at the best trout water in America? Old Faithful was a squaretail. He’d been in the pool below Horseshoe Falls for twenty years, as a matter of record. We’ll come to that presently. How are we off for time?”
“Thirty-one minutes,” I told him. “I’m the watching the clock—go ahead.”
“Well, there she was, on a fishing trip with nothing to fish with. There was only one answer to that—she couldn’t fish. But I went over everything she’d brought in three trunks and I’ll give you my word she didn’t have a garment of any sort you couldn’t see through.
“Something had to be done and done quick, that was for sure. I fitted her out from my own things with a sweater, a flannel shirt, and a pair of knickerbockers. Then I got the proprietor up and explained the situation. He got me some heavy underwear and two pairs of woolen stockings that belonged to his wife. When it came to shoes it looked hopeless, but the proprietor’s wife, who had got up, too, by this time, thought of a pair of boy’s moccasin’s that were in the store and they turned out to be about the right size. I made arrangements to rent the room we had until we came out again to keep her stuff in, and took another room for the night—what was left of it after she’d repacked what could stay in the trunks and arranged what couldn’t so it wouldn’t be wrinkled.
“I got up early, dressed, and took my duffle down to the landing. I wakened her when I left the room. When breakfast was ready I went to see why she hadn’t come down. She was all dressed, sitting on the edge of the bed. I said, ‘Breakfast is ready, darling,’ but I saw by her face that something was wrong again. It turned out to be my knickers. They fitted her perfectly—a little tight in spots—except in the waist. They would simply have fallen off if she hadn’t held them up.
“Well, I was going in so light that I only had one belt. The proprietor didn’t have any—he used suspenders. Neither did his wife—she used—well, whatever they use. He got me a piece of clothesline and I knotted it at each and ran it through the what-you-may-call-’ems of the knickers and tied it in front. The knickers sort of puckered all the way around, but they couldn’t come down—that was the main thing. I said, ‘There you are, darling.’ She walked over and tilted the mirror of the bureau so that she could see herself from head to foot. She said, ‘Who are going to be at this place where we are going?’ I said, ‘Some of the very best dry-fly men in the country.’ She said, ‘I don’t mean them; I mean the women. Will there be any women there?’
“I told her, certainly there would be women. I asked her if she thought I would take her into a camp with nothing but men. I named some of the women: Mrs. Fred Beal and Mrs. Brooks Carter and Talcott Ranning’s sister and several more.
“She turned around slowly in front of the mirror, staring into it for a minute. Then she said, ‘Please go out and close the door.’ I said, ‘All right, darling; but come right down. The tug will be here in fifteen minutes.’
“I went downstairs and waited for ten minutes, then I heard the tug whistle for the landing and ran upstairs again. I knocked at the door. When she didn’t answer I went in. Where do you suppose she was?”
I gave it up.
“In bed!” said George in an awe-struck voice. “In bed with her face turned to the wall; and listen, I didn’t lose my temper as God is my judge. I rushed down to the wharf and told the tug captain I’d give him twenty-five dollars extra if he’d hold the boat till we came. He said all right and I went back to the room.
“The breeches had done it. She simply wouldn’t wear them. I told her that at a fishing camp in Maine clothes were never thought of. I said, ‘No one thinks of anything but trout, darling.’ She said, ‘I wouldn’t let a fish see me looking like that.’” George’s brow beaded suddenly. His hands dived searchingly into various pockets. “Got a cigarette? I left my case in my other suit.”
He took a cigarette from me, lighted it with shaking fingers and inhaled deeply.
“It went on like that for thirty minutes. She was crying all the time, of course. I had started down to tell the tug captain it was all off, and I saw a woman’s raincoat hanging in the hall. It belonged to someone up in one of the camps, the proprietor told me. I gave him seventy-five dollars to give to whoever owned it when he came out, and took it upstairs. In about ten minutes I persuaded her to wear it over the rest of her outfit until we got to camp. I told her one of the women would be able to fix her up all right when we got there. I didn’t believe it, of course. The women at camp were all old-timers; they’d gone in as light as the men, but I had to say something.
“We had quite a trip going in. The guides were at the head of the lake all right—Indian Joe and new a man I’d never seen, called Charlie. I told Joe to take Isabelle—he’s one of the best canoemen I ever saw. I was going to paddle bow for my man, but I’d have to bet a cookie Indian Joe could stay with us on any kind of water. We had to beat it right through to make camp by night. It’s a good stiff trip, but it can be done. I looked back at the other canoe now and then we struck about a mile of white water that took all I had. When we were through the other canoe wasn’t in sight. The river made a bend there, and I thought it was just behind and would show up any minute.
“Well, it didn’t show up and I began to wonder. We hit our first portage about ten o’clock and landed. I watched downstream for twenty minutes, expecting to sight the other canoe every instant. Then Charlie, who hadn’t opened his head, said, ‘Better go back,’ and put the canoe in again. We paddled downstream for all that was in it. I was stiff with fright. We saw ‘em coming about three miles lower down and back-paddled till they came up. Isabelle was more cheerful-looking than she’d been since we left New York, but Joe had that stony face an Indian gets when he’s sore.
“I said, ‘Anything wrong?’ Joe just grunted and drove the canoe past us. Then I saw it was filled with wild flowers. Isabelle said she’d been picking them right off the banks all the way long. She said she’d only had to get out of the boat once, for the blue ones. Now, you can’t beat that—not in a thousand years. I leave it to you if you can. Twenty miles of stiff current, with five portages ahead of us and a nine-mile hike at the end of that. I gave that Indian the devil for letting her do such a thing, and tipped the flowers into the Penobscot when we unloaded for the first portage. She didn’t speak to me on the portage, and she got into her canoe without a word.
“Nothing more happened going in, except this flower business had lost us two hours, and it was so dark when we struck the swamp at Loon Lake that we couldn’t follow the trail well and kept stumbling over down timber and stepping into bog holes. She was about fagged out by then, and the mosquitoes were pretty thick through there. Without any warning she sat down in the trail. She did it so suddenly I nearly fell over her. I asked her what was the matter and she said, ‘This is the end’—just like that—’this is the end!’ I said, ‘The end of what, darling?’ She said, ‘Of everything!’ I told her if she sat there all wet and muddy she’d catch her death. She said she hoped so. I said, ‘It’s only two miles more, darling. Just think, tomorrow we’ll be on the best trout water in the world!’ With that she said, ‘I want my mother, my darling mother,’ and bowed her head in her hands. Think if over, please; and remember, I didn’t lose my temper. You’re sure there’s nothing left in your flask?”
“Not a drop more, George,” I assured him. “Go ahead; we’ve only twenty-five minutes.”
George looked wildly at the clock, then at his watch.
“A man never has it when he wants it most. Have you noticed that? Where was I?”
“You were in the swamp.”
“Oh, yes! Well, she didn’t speak after that, and nothing I could say would budge her. The mosquitoes had got wind of us when we stopped and were coming in swarms. We’d be eaten alive in another ten minutes. So I told Joe to give his pack to Charlie and help me pick her up and carry her. Joe said, ‘No, by damn!’ and folded his arms. When an Indian gets sore he stays sore, and when he’s sore he’s stubborn. The mosquitoes were working on him good and plenty, though, and at last he said, ‘Me carry packs. Charlie help carry—that.’ He flipped his hand over in the direction of Isabelle and took the pack from Charlie.
“It was black as your hat by now, and the trail through there was only about a foot wide with swamp on each side. It was going to be some job getting her out of there. I thought Charlie and I would make a chair of our arms and stumble along with her some way; but when I started to lift her up she said, ‘Don’t touch me!’ and got up and went on. A blessing if there ever was one. We got to camp at ten that night.
“She was stiff and sore the next morning—you expect it after a trip like that—besides, she’d caught a little cold. I asked her how she felt, and she said she was going to die and asked me to send for a doctor and her mother. The nearest doctor was at Bangor and her mother was in New Rochelle. I carried her breakfast over from the dining camp to our cabin. She said she couldn’t eat any breakfast, but she did drink a cup of coffee, telling me between sips how awful it was to die alone in a place like that.
“After she’d had the coffee she seemed to feel better. I went to the camp library and got The Dry Fly on American Waters, by Charles Darty. I considered him the soundest man in the country. He’s better than Pell or Fawcett. My chief criticism of him is that in his chapter on Streams East of the Alleghenies—east of the Alleghenies, mind you—he recommends the Royal Coachman. I consider the Lead-Wing Coachman a serviceable fly on clear, hard-fished water; but the Royal—never! I wouldn’t give it a shade over the Professor or the Montreal. Just consider the body alone of the Royal Coachman—never mind the wings and hackle—the body of the Royal is—”
“Yes, I know, George,” I said; “but—”
I glanced significantly at the clock. George started, sighed, and resumed his narrative.
“I went back to the cabin and said, ‘Darling, here is one of the most intensely interesting books ever written. I’m going to read it aloud to you. I think I can finish it today. Would you like to sit up in bed while I read?’ She said she hadn’t strength enough to sit up in bed, so I sat down beside her and started reading. I had read about an hour, I suppose, when she did sit up in bed quite suddenly. I saw she was staring at me in a queer, wild way that was really startling. I said, ‘What is it, darling?’ She said, ‘I’m going to get up. I’m going to get up this instant.’
“Well, I was delighted, naturally. I thought the book would get her by the time I’d read it through. But there she was, as keen as mustard before I’d got well into it. I’ll tell you what I made up my mind to do, right there. I made up my mind to let her use my rod that day. Yes, sir—my three-ounce Spinoza, and what’s more, I did it.”
George looked at me triumphantly, then lapsed into reflection for a moment.
“If ever a man did everything possible to—well, let it go. The main thing is, I have nothing to reproach myself with—nothing. Except—but we’ll come to that presently. Of course, she wasn’t ready for dry flies yet. I borrowed some wet flies from the club steward, got some cushions for the canoe and put my rod together. She had no waders, so a stream was out of the question. The lake was better, anyway, that first day; she’d have all the room she wanted for her back cast.
“I stood there on the landing with her before we got into the canoe and showed her just how to put out a fly and recover it. Then she tried it.” A sort of horror came into George’s face. “You wouldn’t believe any one could handle a rod like that,” he said huskily. “You couldn’t believe it unless you’d seen it. Gimme a cigarette.
“I worked with her a half hour or so and saw no improvement—none whatever. At last she said, ‘The string is too long. I can’t do anything with such a long string on a pole.’ I told her gently—gently, mind you—that the string was an eighteen-dollar doubletapered Hurdman line, attached to a Gebhardt reel on a three-ounce Spinoza rod. I said, ‘We’ll go out on the lake now. If you can manage to get a rise, perhaps it will come to you instinctively.’
“I paddled her out on the lake and she went at it. She’d spat the flies down and yank them up and spat them down again. She hooked me several times with her back cast and got tangled up in the line herself again and again. All this time I was speaking quietly to her, telling her what to do. I give you my word I never raised my voice—not once—and I thought she’d break the tip every moment.
“Finally she said her arm was tired and lowered the rod. She’d got everything messed up with her last cast and the flies were trailing just over the side of the canoe. I said, ‘Recover your cast and reel in, darling.’ Instead of using her rod, she took hold of the leader close to the flies and started to pull them into the canoe. At that instant a little trout—couldn’t have been over six inches—took the tail fly. I don’t know exactly what happened, it was all over so quickly. I think she just screamed and let go of everything. At any rate, I saw my Spinoza bounce off the gunwale of the canoe and disappear. There was fifty feet of water just there. And now listen carefully: not one word did I utter— not one. I simply turned the canoe and paddled to the landing in absolute silence. No reproaches of any sort. Think that over!”
I did. My thoughts left me speechless. George proceeded:
“I took out a guide and tried dragging for the rod with a gang hook and heavy sinker all the rest of the day. But the gangs would only foul on the bottom. I gave up at dusk and paddled in. I said to the guide—it was Charlie—I said, ‘Well, it’s all over, Charlie.’ Charlie said, ‘I brought Mr. Carter in and he had an extra rod. Maybe you could borrow it. It’s a four-ounce Meecham.’ I smiled. I actually smiled. I turned and looked at the lake. ‘Charlie,’ I said, ‘somewhere out there in that dark water, where the eye of man will never behold it again, is a three-ounce Spinoza—and you speak of a Meecham.’ Charlie said, ‘Well, I just thought I’d tell you.’ I said, ‘That’s all right, Charlie. That’s all right.’ I went to the main camp, saw Jean, the head guide and made arrangements to leave the next day. Then I went to our cabin and sat down before the fire. I heard Isabelle say something about being sorry. I said, ‘I’d rather not talk about it, darling. If you don’t mind, we’ll never mention it again.’ We sat there in silence, then, until dinner.
“As we got up from dinner, Nate Griswold and his wife asked us to play bridge with them that evening. I’d told no one what had happened, and Nate didn’t know, of course. I simply thanked him and said we were tired, and we went back to our cabin. I sat down before the fire again. Isabelle seemed restless. At least she said,
‘George.’ I said, ‘What is it, darling?’ She said, ‘Would you like to read to me from that book?’ I said, ‘I’m sorry, darling; if you don’t mind I’ll just sit here quietly by the fire.’
“Somebody knocked at the door after a while. I said, ‘Come in.’ It was Charlie. I said, ‘What is it, Charlie?’ Then he told me that Bob Frazer had been called back to New York and was going out the next morning. I said, ‘Well, what of it?’ Charlie said, ‘I just thought you could maybe borrow his rod.’ I said, ‘I thought you under stood about that, Charlie.’ Charlie said, ‘Well, that’s it. Mr. Frazer’s rod is a three-ounce Spinoza.’
“I got up and shook hands with Charlie and gave him five dollars. But when he’d gone I began to realize what was before me. I’d brought in a pint flask of prewar Scotch. Prewar—get that! I put this in my pocket and went over to Bob’s cabin. Just as I was going to knock I lost my nerve. I sneaked away from the door and went down to the lake and sat on the steps of the canoe landing. I sat there for quite a while and took several nips. At last I thought I’d just go and tell Bob of my loss and see what he said. I went back to his cabin and this time I knocked. Bob was putting a few odds and ends in a shoulder pack. His rod was in its case, standing against the wall.
“I said, ‘I hear you’re going out in the morning.’ He said, ‘Yes, curse it, my wife’s mother has to have some sort of damned operation or other.’ I said, ‘How would a little drink strike you, Bob?’ He said, ‘Strike me! Wait a minute! What kind of drink?’ I took out the flask and handed it to him. He unscrewed the cap and held the flask to his nose. He said, ‘Great heavens above, it smells like—’ I said, ‘It is.’ He said, ‘It can’t be!’ I said, ‘Yes, it is.’ He said, ‘There’s a trick in it somewhere.’ I said, ‘No, there isn’t—I give you my word.’ He tasted what was in the flask carefully. Then he said, ‘This is very generous of you, George,’ and took a good stiff snort. When he was handing back the flask he said, ‘I’ll do as much for you some day, if I ever get the chance.’ I took a snifter myself.
“Then I said, ‘Bob, something awful has happened to me. I came here to tell you about it.’ He said, ‘Is that so? Sit down.’ I sat down and told him. He said, ‘What kind of rod was it?’ I said, ‘A three-ounce Spinoza.’ He came over and gripped my hand without a word. I said, ‘Of course, I can’t use anything else.’ He nodded, and I saw his eyes flicker toward the corner of the room where his own rod was standing. I said, ‘Have another drink, Bob.’ But he just sat down and stared at me. I took a good stiff drink myself. Then I said, ‘Under ordinary circumstances, nothing on earth could hire me to ask a man to—” I stopped right there.
“Bob got up suddenly and began to walk up and down the room. I said, ‘Bob, I’m not considering myself—not for a minute. If it was last season, I’d simply have gone back tomorrow without a word. But I’m not alone any more. I’ve got the little girl to consider. She’s never seen a trout taken in her life—think of it, Bob! And here she is, on her honeymoon, at the best water I know of. On her honeymoon, Bob!’ I waited for him to say something, but he went to the window and stared out, with his back to me. I got up and said good-night and started for the door. Just as I reached it he turned from the window and rushed over and picked up his rod. He said, ‘Here, take it,’ and put the rod case in my hands. I started to try to thank him, but he said, ‘Just go ahead with it,’ and pushed me out the door.”
The waiter was suddenly hovering above us with his eyes on the dishes.
“Now what do you want?” said George.
“Never mind clearing here,” I said. “Just bring me the check. Go ahead, George.”
“Well, of course, I can’t any more than skim what happened finally, but you’ll understand. It turned out that Ernie Payton’s wife had an extra pair of knickers and she loaned them to Isabelle. I was waiting outside the cabin while she dressed next morning, and she called out to me, ‘Oh, George, they fit!’ Then I heard her begin to sing. She was a different girl when she came out to go to breakfast. She was almost smiling. She’d done nothing but slink about the day before. Isn’t it extraordinary what will seem important to a woman? Gimme a cigarette.”
“Fifteen minutes, George,” I said as I supplied him.
“Yes, yes, I know. I fished the Cuddiwink that day. Grand stream, grand. I used a Pink Lady—first day on a stream with Isabelle—little touch of sentiment—and it’s a darn good fly. I fished it steadily all day. Or did I try a Seth Green about noon? It seems to me I did, now that I recall it. It seems to me that where the Katahdin brook comes in I—”
“It doesn’t really matter, does it, George?” I ventured.
“Of course, it matters!” said George decisively. “A man wants to be exact about such things. The precise details of what happens in a day’s work on a stream are of real value to yourself and others. Except in the case of a record fish, it isn’t important that you took a trout; it’s exactly how you took him that’s important.”
“But the time, George,” I protested.
He glanced at the clock, swore softly, mopped his brow—this time with the blue-gray handkerchief—and proceeded.
“Isabelle couldn’t get into the stream without waders, so I told her to work along the bank a little behind me. It was pretty thick along there, second growth and vines mostly; but I was putting that Pink Lady on every foot of good water and she kept up with me easily enough. She didn’t see me take many trout, though. I’d look for her, after landing one, to see what she thought of the way I’d handled the fish, and almost invariably she was picking the ferns or blueberries, or getting herself untangled from something. Curious things, women. Like children, when you stop to think of it.”
George stared at me unseeingly for a moment.
“And you never heard of Old Faithful?” he asked suddenly. “Evidently not, from what you said a while ago. Well, a lot of people have, believe me. Men have gone to Cuddiwink district just to see him. As I’ve already told you, he lay beside a ledge in the pool below Horseshoe Falls. Almost nothing else in the pool. He kept it cleaned out. Worst sort of cannibal, of course—all big trout are. That was the trouble—he wanted something that would stick to his ribs. No flies for him. Did his feeding at night.
“You could see him dimly if you crawled out on a rock that jutted above the pool and looked over. Hey lay in about ten feet of water, right by his ledge. If he saw you he’d back under the ledge, slowly, like a submarine going into dock. Think of the biggest thing you’ve ever seen, and that’s the way Old Faithful looked, just laying there as still as the ledge. He never seemed to move anything, not even his gills. When he backed in out of sight he seemed to be drawn under the ledge by some invisible force.
“Ridgway—R. Campbell Ridgway—you may have read his stuff. Brethren of the Wild, that sort of thing— claimed to have seen him move. He told me about it one night. He said he was lying with just his eyes over the edge of the rock, watching the trout. Said he’d been there an hour, when down over the falls came a young red squirrel. I had fallen in above and been carried over. The squirrel was half drowned, but struck out feebly for shore. Well, so Ridgway said—Old Faithful came up and took Mister Squirrel into camp. No hurry; just came drifting up, sort of inhaled the squirrel and sank down to the ledge again. Never made a ripple, Ridgway said; just business.
“I’m telling you all this because it’s necessary that you get an idea of that trout in your mind. You’ll see why in a minute. No one ever had hold of him. But it was customary, if you fished the Cuddiwink, to make a few casts over him before you left the stream. Not that you ever expected him to rise. It was just a sort of gesture. Everybody did it.
“Knowing that Isabelle had never seen trout taken before, I made a day of it—naturally. The trail to camp leaves the stream just at the falls. It was pretty late when we got to it. Isabelle had her arms full of— heaven knows what—flowers and grass and ferns and fir branches and colored leaves. She’d lugged the stuff for hours. I remember once that day I was fighting a fourteen-inch blackberry—I think it was—she’d found. How does that strike you? And listen! I said, ‘It’s a beauty, darling.’ That’s what I said—or something like that … Here, don’t you pay that check! Bring it here, waiter!”
“Go on, George!” I said. “We haven’t time to argue about the check. You’d come to the trail for camp at the falls.”
“I told Isabelle to wait at the trail for a few minutes, while I went below the falls and did the customary thing for the edification of Old Faithful. I only intended to make three or four casts with the Number Twelve Fly and the hair-fine leader I had on, but in getting down to the pool I hooked the fly in a bush. In trying to loosen it I stumbled over something and fell. I snapped the leader like a thread, and since I had to put on another, I tied on a fairly heavy one as a matter of form.
“I had reached for my box for a regulation fly of some sort when I remembered a fool thing that Billy Roach had given me up on the Beaverkill the season before. It was fully two inches long; I forget what he called it. He said you fished it dry for bass or large trout. He said you worked the tip of your rod and made it wiggle like a dying minnow. I didn’t want the contraption, but he’d borrowed some fly oil from me and insisted on my taking it. I’d stuck it in the breast pocket of my fishing jacket and forgotten it until then.
“Well, I felt in the pocket and there it was. I tried it on and went down to the pool. Now let me show you the exact situation.” George seized a fork. “This is the pool.” The fork traced an oblong figure on the table-cloth. “Here is Old Faithful’s ledge.” The fork deeply marked this impressive spot. “Here are the falls, with white water running to here. You can only wade to this point here, and then you have an abrupt six-foot depth. ‘But you can put a fly from here to here with a long line,’ you say. No, you can’t. You’ve forgotten to allow for your back cast. Notice this bend here? That tells the story. You’re not more than twenty feet from a lot of birch and whatnot, when you can no longer wade. ‘Well then, it’s impossible to put a decent fly on the water above the sunken ledge,’ you say. It looks like it, but this is how it’d done: right here is a narrow point running to here, where it dwindles off to a single flat rock. If you work out on the point you can jump across to this rock—situated right here—and there you are, with about a thirty-foot cast to the sunken ledge. Deep water all around you, of course, and the rock is slippery; but—there you are. Now notice this small cove, right here. The water from the falls rushes past it in a froth, but in the cove it forms a deep eddy, with the current moving round and round like this.” George made a slow circular motion with the fork. “You know what I mean?”
I nodded.
“I got out on the point and jumped to the rock; got myself balanced, worked out the right amount of line and cast the dungaree Bill had forced on me, just above the sunken ledge. I didn’t take the water lightly and I cast again, but I couldn’t put it down decently. It would just flop in—too much weight and too many feathers. I suppose I cast it a dozen times, trying to make it settle like a fly. I wasn’t thinking of trout— there would be nothing in there except Old Faithful—I was just monkeying with this doodle-bug thing, now that I had it on.
“I gave up at last and let it lie out where I had cast it. I was standing there looking at the falls roaring down, when I remembered Isabelle, waiting up on the trail. I raised my rod preparatory to reeling in and the what-you-may-call-’em made a kind of dive and wiggle out there on the surface. I reached for my reel handle. Then I realized that the thingamajig wasn’t on the water. I didn’t see it disappear, exactly; I was looking at it, and then it wasn’t there. ‘That’s funny,’ I thought, and struck instinctively. Well, I was fast—so it seemed—and no snags in there. I gave it the butt three or four times, but the rod only bowed and nothing budged. I tried to figure it out. I thought perhaps a water-logged timber had come diving over the falls and upended right there. Then I noticed the rod take more of a bend and the line began to move through the water. It moved out slowly, very slowly, into the middle of the pool. It was exactly as though I was hooked on to a freight train just getting under way.
“I knew what I had hold of then, and yet I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe it. I kept thinking it was a dream, I remember. Of course, he could have gone away with everything I had any minute if he’d wanted to, but he didn’t. He just kept moving slowly, round and round the pool. I gave him what pressure the tackle would stand, but he never noticed a little thing like that; just kept moving around the pool for hours, it seemed to me. I’d forgotten Isabelle; I admit that. I’d forgotten everything on earth. There didn’t seem to be anything else on earth, as a matter of fact, except the falls and the pool and Old Faithful and me. At last Isabelle showed up on the bank above me, still lugging her ferns and whatnot. She called down to me above the noise of the falls. She asked me how long I expected her to wait alone in the woods, with night coming on.
“I hadn’t had the faintest idea how I was going to try to land the fish until then. The water was boiling past the rock I was standing on, and I couldn’t jump back to the point without giving him slack and perhaps falling in. I began to look around and figure. Isabelle said, ‘What on earth are you doing?’ I took off my landing net and tossed it to the bank. I yelled, ‘Drop that junk quick and pick up that net!’ She said, ‘What for, George?’ I said, ‘Do as I tell you and don’t ask questions!’ She laid down what she had and picked up the net and I told her to go to the cove and stand ready.
“She said, ‘Ready for what?’ I said, ‘You’ll see what presently. Just stand there.’ I’ll admit I wasn’t talking quietly. There was the noise of the falls to begin with, and—well, naturally, I wasn’t.
“I went to work on the fish again. I began to educate him to the lead. I thought if I could lead him into the cove he would swing right past Isabelle and she could net him. It was slow work—a three-ounce rod— imagine! Isabelle called, ‘Do you know what time it is?’ I told her to keep still and stand where she was. She didn’t say anything more than that.
“At last the fish began to come. He wasn’t tired— he’d never done any fighting, as a matter of fact—but he’d take a suggestion as to where to go from the rod. I kept swinging him nearer and nearer the cove each time he came around. When I saw he was about ready to come I yelled to Isabelle. I said, ‘I’m going to bring him right past you, close to the top. All you have to do is to net him.’
“When the fish came round again I steered him into the cove. Just as he was swinging past Isabelle the stuff she’d been lugging began to roll down the bank. She dropped the landing net on top of the fish and made a dive for those leaves and grasses and things. Fortunately the net handle lodged against the bank, and after she’d put her stuff in a nice safe place she came back and picked up the net again. I never uttered a syllable. I deserve no credit for that. The trout had made a surge and shot out into the pool and I was too busy just then to give her any idea of what I thought.
“I had a harder job getting him to swing in again. He was a little leery of the cove, but at last he came. I steered him toward Isabelle and lifted him all I dared. He came up nicely, clear to the top. I yelled, ‘Here he comes! For God’s sake, don’t miss him!’ I put everything on the tackle it would stand and managed to check the fish for an instant right in front of Isabelle.
“And this is what she did: it doesn’t seem credible—it doesn’t seem humanly possible; but it’s a fact that you’ll have to take my word for. She lifted the landing net above her head with both hands and brought it down on top of the fish with all her might!”
George ceased speaking. Despite its coating of talcum powder, I was able to detect an additional pallor in his countenance.
“Will I ever forget it as long as I live?” he inquired at last.
“No, George,” I said, “but we’ve just exactly eleven minutes left.”
George made a noticeable effort and went on.
“By some miracle the fish stayed on the hook; but I got a faint idea of what would have happened if he’s taken a real notion to fight. He went around the pool so fast it must have made him dizzy. I heard Isabelle say, ‘I didn’t miss him, George’; and then—well, I didn’t lose my temper; you wouldn’t call it that exactly. I hardly knew what I said. I’ll admit I shouldn’t have said it. But I did say it; no doubt of that; no doubt of that whatever.”
“What was it you said?” I asked.
George looked at me uneasily.
“Oh, the sort of thing a man would say impulsively—under the circumstances.”
“Was it something disparaging about her?” I inquired.
“Oh, no,” said George, “nothing about her. I simply intimated—in a somewhat brutal way, I suppose— that’s she’d better get away from the pool—er—not bother me any more is what I meant to imply.”
For the first time since George had chosen me for a confidant I felt a lack of frankness on his part.
“Just what did you say, George?” I insisted.
“Well, it wasn’t altogether my words,” he evaded. “It was the tone I used, as much as anything. Of course, the circumstances would excuse—Still, I regret it. I admit that. I’ve told you so plainly.”
There was no time in which to press him further.
“Well, what happened then?” I asked.
“Isabelle just disappeared. She went up the bank, of course, but I didn’t see her go. Old Faithful was still nervous and I had to keep my eye on the line. He quieted down in a little while and continued to promenade slowly around the pool. I suppose this kept up for half an hour more. Then I made up my mind that something had to be done. I turned very carefully on the rock, lowered the tip until it was on the line with the fish, turned the rod under my arm until it was pointing behind me and jumped.
“Of course, I had to give him slack; but I kept my balance on the point by the skin of my teeth, and when I raised the rod he was still on. I worked to the bank, giving out line, and crawled under some bushes and things and got around to the cove at last. Then I started to work again to swing him into the cove, but absolutely nothing doing. I could lead him anywhere except into the cove. He’d had enough of that; I didn’t blame him, either.
“To make a long story short, I stayed with him for two hours. For a while it was pretty dark; but there was a good-sized moon that night, and when it rose it shone right down on the pool through a gap in the trees fortunately. My wrist was gone completely, but I managed to keep some pressure on him all the time, and at last he forgot about what had happened to him in the cove. I swung him in and the current brought him past me. He was on his side by now. I don’t think he was tired even then—just discouraged. I let him drift over the net, heaved him out on the bank and sank down beside him, absolutely all in. I couldn’t have got to my feet on a bet. I just sat there in a sort of daze and looked at Old Faithful, gleaming in the moonlight.
“After a half-hour’s rest I was able to get up and go to camp. I planned what I was going to do on the way. There was always a crowd in the main camp living room after dinner. I simply walked into the living room without a word and laid Old Faithful on the center table.
“Well, you can imagine faintly what happened. I never got any dinner—couldn’t have eaten any, as a matter of fact. I didn’t even get a chance to take off my waders. By the time I’d told just how I’d done it to one crowd, more would come in and look at Old Faithful; and then stand and look at me for a while; and then make me tell it all over again. At last everybody began to dig up anything they had with a kick in it. Almost every one had a bottle he’d been hoarding. There was Scotch and gin and brandy and rye and a lot of experimental stuff. Art Bascom got a tin dish pan from the kitchen and put in on the table beside Old Faithful. He said, ‘Pour your contributions right in here, men.’ So each man dumped whatever he had into the dish pan and everybody helped himself.
“It was great, of course. The biggest night of my life, but I hope I’ll never be so dog-tired again. I felt as though I’d taken a beating. After they’d weighed Old Faithful—nine pounds five and a half ounces; and he’d been out of water two hours—I said I had to go to bed, and went.
“Isabelle wasn’t in the cabin. I thought, in a hazy way, that she was with some of the women, somewhere. Don’t get the idea I was stewed. But I hadn’t had anything to eat, and the mixture in that dish pan was plain TNT.
“I fell asleep as soon as I hit the bed; slept like a log till daylight. Then I half woke up, feeling that something terrific had happened. For a minute I didn’t know what; then I remember what it was. I had landed Old Faithful on a three-ounce rod!
“I lay there and went over the whole thing from the beginning, until I came to Isabelle with the landing net. That made me look at where her head should have been on the pillow. It wasn’t there. She wasn’t in the cabin. I thought perhaps she’d got up early and gone out to look at the lake or the sunrise or something. But I got up in a hurry and dressed.
“Well, I could see no signs of Isabelle about camp. I ran into Jean just coming from the head guide’s cabin and he said, ‘Too bad about your wife’s mother.’ I said, ‘What’s that?’ He repeated what he’d said, and added, ‘She must be an awful sick woman.’ Well, I got out of him finally that Isabelle had come straight up from the stream the evening before, taken two guides and started for Buck’s Landing. Jean had urged her to wait until morning, naturally; but she’d told him she must get to her mother at once, and took on so, as Jean put it, that he had to let her go.
“I said, ‘Let me have Indian Joe, stern, and a good man, bow. Have ‘em ready in ten minutes.’ I rushed to the kitchen, drank two cups of coffee and started for Buck’s Landing. We made the trip down in seven hours, but Isabelle had left with her trunks on the 10:40 train.
“I haven’t seen her since. Went to her home once. She wouldn’t see me; neither would her mother. Her father advised not forcing things—just waiting. He said he’d do what he could. We’ll, he’s done it—you read the letter. Now you know the whole business. You’ll stick, of course, and see me through just the first of it, old man. Of course, you’ll do that, won’t you? We’d better get down to the train now. Track nineteen.”
“George,” I said, “one thing more: just what did you say to her when she—” “Oh, I don’t know,” George began vaguely.
“George,” I interrupted, “no more beating about the bush. What did you say?” I saw his face grow even more haggard, if possible. Then it mottled into a shade resembling the brick on an old colonial mansion.
“I told her—” he began in a low voice.
“Yes?” I encouraged.
“I told her to get the hell out of there.”
And now a vision was presented to my mind’s eye; a vision of twelve fish plates, each depicting a trout curving up through green waters to an artificial fly. The vision extended on through the years. I saw Mrs. George Baldwin Potter ever gazing upon those rising trout and recalling the name on the card which had ac-companied them to her door.
I turned and made rapidly for the main entrance of the Grand Central Station. In doing so I passed the clock above Information and saw that I still had two minutes in which to be conveyed by a taxicab far, far from the entrance to Track Nineteen.
I remember hearing the word “quitter” hurled after me by a hoarse, despairing voice.