GUIDES, WHITE 
thing or two before I got through with ’em, 
and if it won’t tire ye too much to listen 
while the tea there is boilin’, Ill tell ye how 
I licked the boys from Harvard. These fel- 
lers got to tellin’ us guides how they rowed 
on the Harvard crew (I sometimes think 
they never set foot in a Harvard boat) and 
how the guides didn’t know the devil of a 
lot about a rowboat or a canoe. I got a bit 
warm around the collar of my flannel shirt 
but I held my tongue in my teeth so I 
couldn’t answer. Next day I proposed a 
race. ‘There was four to be in the race, for 
we had only four boats, so three of the 
sports and mesel’ were the contestants. 
There was a straight stretch of water for 
about a mile that ended by our camp, and 
AND BROWN 29 
this was the scene of the triumph of an old 
hecker of a woodsman over three dandy 
sports from town. [I lifted her fair that day, 
for my ire was up and the way that canoe 
leaped and all but flew along the surface of 
the stream can’t be explained in my lan- 
guage. Before I had gone 200 yards the 
water had gotten so hot under me that it 
burnt a couple of holes in the bottom of the 
canoe. I looked back, but I couldn’t see the 
boys on account of the steam I’d created 
along the quiet racecourse. My paddle 
itself was on fire by this time; three trout 
came up through the holes in the canoe and 
were soon boiled in the hot water. The 
edges of the boat were beginning to burn, 
but on I went like greased lightnin’, so fast 

ED RONCO BIRLING A LOG—ONE OF THE OTHERS SWAM UNDER WATER AND, 
TIPPING THE LOG, GAVE HIM A DUCKING 
