IN A FISHING COUNTRY 



of voyaging has stirred a memory, at odd 

 times and in odd places, the originals of 

 these dim copies were revealed to us; some 

 trivial mishap on the trail perhaps bring- 

 ing to his mind a day when life and death 

 hung upon the noosing of a hare, a shift in 

 the wind, the turn of a paddle. 



Here, then, was such a place and time. 



T was never for risking open water 



where the gain was small, and his caution 

 had a surprising way of justifying itself 

 against the canoe that insisted upon a 

 straight line being the shortest one between 

 two points. At the moment, however, sea 

 and wind left no choice in the matter of 

 crossing a lake, and we were holding 

 close inshore. His long and heavy paddle 



used as a pole, T was shoving mightily 



round the shallow edge, taking an eager 

 part in the talk of our prospects upon some 

 new waters. A sentence shouted at our 

 backs against the stiff breeze broke off 

 short, the canoe ceased to smash into the 

 waves, a burst of laughter that seemed in 

 no wise pertinent swung us about to see the 

 end of the paddle sticking up from the 

 water and just comfortably out of reach — 

 the blade fast bet\veen two rocks at the 

 bottom. The wind, setting a bit towards land, 

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