28 RECREATION 
sportsmen did. They shifted around a bit 
uneasily and I left ’em shift before I wenton, 
and Billy all the time was getting as nervous 
as a cat. I had just made the remark that 
the gentlemen who had gone down-hill 
for spring water were surely taking a long 
time, when an awful wail and scream 
pierced a hole in the still night (if ye’ll par- 
don my poetical thought) and the men could 
feel their hair stand on end, while the goose- 
flesh came and went on their faces and 
necks, and then poor little Joe,pale as ashes 
and tremblin’ so that he almost fooled me, 
and me in cahoots with ’im, came runnin’ 
into camp and, sinkin’ in a heap on the 
ground, cried out, ‘Good Lord, boys, that 
awful thing howled in my ear and I saw two 
big, shining eyes in the middle of a bush! 
What in h—I can it be?’ Then up spoke 
Pierre, the halfbreed: ‘By dam, he soun’ 
jes’ like painter I hear leven, twel’ year 
’g0; he keel mon pere’s sheep; I no lak dese 
painter.’ Well, boys, they were purty well 
shaken up, but nobody was for makin’ a 
move. Then again through the dense woods 
the ghostly wail sounded, and if you’d a 
been there you’d have seen your Uncle 
Harlow doin’ frantic stunts to get his hands 
on a gun. Oh, I tell you it was gettin’ to 
look like the real thing all right. The crowd 
was soon lined up with their guns in front of 
the now dying fire, and somebody asked for 
Billy. He was nowhere to be seen. From 
the direction of his little white tent we soon 
heard groans, and going over I asked him to 
be .brave and come out. ‘No; no!’ he 
cried, holding his tent-flaps tight together. 
“Let. me alone!?>.So0: Pilecit: hineame ag 
turned to go to the fire I saw for the first 
time since the scare my sport with the 
whistle. He was in the act of lighting his 
pipe, and by the glare of the spark in his 
hand his features was a study for an artist, 
sure enough. How he kept from laughin’ 
as he stood there in the midst of that gang, 
I’m never goin’ to tell you. 
‘Well, to make this story short, in a-half 
hour we were in our tents. In the dead of 
night a pair of boots that had been hanging 
by a string over our table fell with a crash 
and knocked a lot of cans and truck on the 
ground. We were out in a jiffy and by the 
light of the moon I saw Billy’s tent almost 
pulled down, as the poor boy dashed out 
and, with the canvas all tangled around his 
feet, fell all over himself, cryin’ out like he 
was murdered. We managed, after a while, 
to calm the boy and order came to the camp, 
but nary a one but Joe, the whistler and 
your humble servant would enter his tent 
that night.” 
So did Ed Harlow get the palm for a 
story-teller on that trip, and well, indeed, 
did he deserve it, since, as we afterwards 
verified, the incident as related by him 
actually occurred. 
Before I leave this merry party of guides 
and sportsmen, let me pay a tribute to Joe. 
With him as a guide I spent four happy 
weeks, not many autumns ago, and if a 
guide ever worked hard to please a sports- 
man on a trip and deserves the credit I hold 
the guide does deserve, Joe surely stands in 
the front rank. I had many a laugh as I 
watched him every other day changing my 
bed of balsam boughs, with care and preci- 
sion, saying that chaps from the city were 
used to downy beds and he didn’t intend to 
have me go back home and kick about my 
couch in the woods. Every morning before 
breakfast he would climb to the top of a 
tree that stood on the bank of a stream near 
camp and “‘look the situation over” as he 
termed it. One day he spied a fine buck 
deer drinking at a bend in the stream not 
fifty yards away, and in his anxiety and 
excitement to let me know he nearly fell 
from his high perch to the ground. Added 
to his many good qualities was his work as 
a canoeman. He could make good time in 
all kinds of wind and weather with paddle 
or pole, and, in fact, with possibly one ex- 
ception, he was as expert a man on the water 
as I’ve ever known or heard of. 
This exception brings me to Ed Grant, 
who guides in the woods around Rangeley. 
I’ve never met Grant, but I have the story 
of his canoemanship from one who paddled 
in the same boat with him for many days. 
It was at noon one day that Grant and his 
sportsman had stopped to cook a little 
lunch on the bank of a stream when some 
flattering remarks were made to the guide 
anent his skill with the feathery blade. 
“Well, I’m not a bad hand a-paddlin’,” 
Grant replied, ‘“‘but there was a crowd I 
had out in the woods a few years ago that 
thought to give me learnin’. I taught ’em a 
