EASY-CHAIR MEMORIES I I 7 



I ketched sixty-one red-eyed bass in sixty minits 

 flat. That catch weighed 152 Ib. n oz., an' they 

 wa'nt a 'big mouth ' in the bunch." 



Fergy backs his statement with such a wealth 

 of small details that the listener is forced into 

 mute acquiescence, if not into outspoken belief. 

 He had a way of measuring up the other guides 

 as well as the "city fellers." 



"Jawy fellers f'm Noo Yawk comes out in 

 the summer an' worrits us some, but by the 

 time they gits ready to go home we got 'em 

 tamed so's they's willin' to set still and let a 

 man talk w'at knows how to talk. Guidin' suits 

 me. I gits $2 a day an' board, an' I can stan' 

 a lot o' lip f 'r that much money. 



".The meanes' guide I ever bumped agin 

 were Alek Hume. He were a Scotchmun, with 

 French blood in him and a dash of Leech Lake 

 Indian. I don't know where you'd go to find 

 a meaner cross than that. . . . He smoked my 

 tobacker an' broke my pipe, an' tol the guests at 

 the hotel that I war'n't no good. ... A tree, 

 1 10 ft. high and 6 ft. 2 in. thick, fell on him las' 

 winter up in Rube Smith's camp, and mashed 

 him flatter 'n a ladybug, but that don't gimme 

 back my tobacker." 



