N 



As a golfer might express it, his 'timing' 

 was without fault. 



A sight to marvel at was N standing 



in the narrow stern of a cranky twelve- 

 foot birch-bark, poised as easily and confi- 

 dently as though upon a raft, while his pole 

 drove it seething up a rapid. Those who 

 have tried will remember — with not an 

 inch to shift a foot, in heavy water, where 

 all the power you have must go to propel- 

 ling and guiding the kittle craft — the 

 delicacies of inconstant balance to which 

 the sub-conscious mind must every moment 

 attend. 



A two-and-a-half ton pilot boat was 

 dragging anchor in a nor'-easterly gale, and 

 in a few moments would be ashore. After 

 a capsize in the surf, (vivid, yet, the recol- 

 lection of ploughing a long furrow in the 

 shingle with one's head I) a North Shore 



canoe managed to get out to her with N 



aboard. He seized one of the heavy ash 

 sweeps, planted himself with broad stance 

 in the leaping stern-sheets, and paddled the 

 yawl against sea and wind out to a safe 

 mooring. 



He tells of a winter's night like to 

 have been his last. Following swiftly and 

 far upon the trail of a slightly wounded 

 203 



