Resurrection 



OLD JOE of Caledonia was reputed to be the best 

 guide and the biggest liar in Nova Scotia. After 

 spending several weeks in his company, one of his 

 intimate friends was so profoundly convinced that Joe's 

 reputation was not undeserved, that he sent him a large, 

 wicked-looking hunting-knife, upon the handle of which 

 was inscribed, in plain English, both the compliment 

 and the insult. The way Old Joe showed the knife around, 

 pridefully, to friend and stranger alike, would lead one 

 to believe that he thought it as essential to be a big liar 

 as it was to be a good guide. 



The number of Joe's stories always struck me as being 

 a little in excess of the requirements for the proper enter- 

 tainment of a " sport." The quality of them, however, 

 was not flagrantly doubtful. In fact, I believe that all 

 of his stories were founded on the actual experiences of 

 himself or others. No active man could spend fifty years 

 as a hunter and lumberman in the Canadian woods, as 

 a farmer on the Canadian prairies, and as a salt-water 

 sailor, without accumulating an extensive fund of fact 

 and fiction. Add to this experience a natural gift as a 

 raconteur, and you have the stuff of which liars are made. 



It was fifteen years ago when I first heard Joe's string 

 of fish stories. I did not believe any of them. To-day 

 I am willing to listen with respect and an open mind to 

 any old-timer's yarns, for I know from experience that 

 truth is stranger than fiction, and that almost anything 

 can happen in the woods. I don't believe in Moochungs, 

 Hidanbiffims, nor Sidehill-gougers, but I do believe that 



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