The Uninvited Guest 



" Who's your friend ?" Emer^ asked, with one eyebrow 

 raised a little higher than the other. 



I lamely tried to explain that he was the man who 

 had sold me the engine, and was not a friend of mine 

 exactly, that I had not wanted him, and perhaps he was 

 not going any farther than Caledonia, and ended by 

 admitting that I did not know what to do about it under 

 the circumstances. Emery recognized my embarrassment 

 and magnanimously agreed to let matters take their 

 course. At Caledonia that night Tug was offensively 

 one of the party. 



Next morning during the drive out to camp he told 

 several really funny stories. The road was long and 

 somewhat muddy, lying largely through woodland. 

 Toward the end of the second hour he seemed to get 

 a little nervous, and asked if there weren't " any people 

 living 'round here." This was my first inkling that Tug 

 had never been in the woods before. When I told him 

 no one lived within a number of miles of camp, where we 

 intended spending that night, he " allowed " that it 

 was an awful lonesome place for people to go for moose. 



Arriving at camp, we rolled the motor-boat out of the 

 boat-house into the water, and then had lunch. The 

 new engine kept Tug so busy all the afternoon that 

 he had no chance to worry about the isolation. During 

 the evening in the camp he was quite the life of the party. 

 He sang songs, recited, step-danced, told unrepeatable 

 stories, and played an " easy " game of poker — all of 

 which softened our hearts a little towards him. Just 

 before we retired. Old Joe, one of our guides, took me 

 aside and in a worried voice asked if I intended taking 

 " that man " out on a moose-hunt, referring to Tug. 

 Assuring Joe that I was going to take " that man " out 

 where the moose were, I inquired why he asked. It 

 seems Tug had told Jim, the other guide, that he had 



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