IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



'Perhaps with something a bit more 

 amusing in prospect than the slaying of 

 Huns,' said MacDougal. 



*That goes without saying; one does not 

 shiver a wet night through under the lee of 

 a spruce for the mere love of being un- 

 comfortable.' 



'O, the woods! — that's dififerent. I, 

 George MacDougal, once a godly and 

 peaceable stockbroker, now an indifferent 

 soldier, declare to Heaven that the thought 

 of a sapin bed in the rain makes me home- 

 sick. Mighty odd, isn't it? One doesn't 

 think like that about Montreal. Mon- 

 treal is well enough in its way: probably 

 I'll end my days there, if I don't stop here; 

 but 'home' seems to lie out beyond — up in 

 the hills, where the rivers rise, and we 

 blazed the trails. Somehow, when you're 

 over here, that's Canada; — that's what you 

 want to get back to. Why, this afternoon 

 f saw the ripple on a pond — had the feel of 

 fishing weather — caught myself looking to 

 see if the trout were rising — been thinking 

 of the river ever since.' 



Bartlet nodded; his eyes followed Mac- 



Dougal's westward, through the clay wall: 



— 'The river! — saw it last on an evening 



like this. Warm, a light breeze, rain in 



146 



