X.—A Storm. 
We slid on the same sled, studied from the 
same books, danced to the same music, and 
dealt from the same ticker, Henry and I, so 
that being left alone in camp was much like 
wearing old shoes. There was a sort of de¬ 
pressing absence about the place, when we re¬ 
turned from seeing Jim and Robert to the sta¬ 
tion, which would have been even more un¬ 
pleasant had not the same train which took them 
away brought a letter from Old Billy, saying 
he would be there by supper time. 
We spent most of the day writing letters, 
mending and doing up all sorts of odd jobs, so 
that we would have as little as possible to 
bother us after he came. Late in the afternoon 
Henry said that if I would go to meet Billy, he 
would stay at camp and have supper ready. 
“I never, have been in camp with Billy,” he 
continued, ‘‘but from the looks of him it seems 
to me that any one who took a contract to feed 
him would need to have a running start. At any 
rate we will try and not get behind the first 
night, for fear we couldn’t catch up.” 
“Well, old man, you did finally decide to come, 
didn’t you?” I called, as Billy came down the 
car steps, and I put out a hand to have it half 
pinched off—I would rather shake hands with a 
vise. 
“Yes,” he replied, “I didn’t intend to, and 
hadn’t ought to, but Lucy took on so I had to 
come to satisfy her.” 
“Lucy is pretty hard on you, isn’t she?” I 
suggested. 
“Oh, you fellows fixed it all up with her.” 
Having thus relieved, his conscience, old Billy 
began to take an interest in things right away. 
“I saw Jim and Robert at Angowara,” he re¬ 
marked. “I tried to get them to turn around 
and come back with me. I most thought they 
I were going to one spell. They wanted to 
terribly. That was a pretty good catch they had. 
Did you leave any in the stream for me? How’s 
Henry?” 
“He’s all right,” I replied. “He staid at camp 
to have supper ready.” 
“Guess it won’t be much readier than I am. 
Say! how is the pup getting on? Suppose he’ll 
know me? I’ve been watching the stream for 
quite a piece back along the track. It looks 
good. Wouldn’t be surprised if this would be 
good deer country. There’s plenty of feed, 
j What was the creek we crossed just before we 
got here?” 
By the time we were started for camp Billy’s 
questions had run out and he had a listening 
fit on, so that I sifted his inquiries out and 
: answered them as best I could. He had never 
] been in the locality before, and I watched him 
as we walked up the railroad track. His eyes 
followed along the side of each mountain, and 
whenever there was a ravine in which a stream 
might rise, he would stop and trace the valley 
until he was satisfied where that particular creek 
1 flowed to. He noted every dividing ridge or 
change in the timber line, until when we struck 
I into the woods he had a clearer idea of that 
i country than many a man who has staid there all 
1 summer long. 
j “Good bear country,” he said, and then moved 
along as silent as the moss on which he trod— 
he was in the woods, and it was instinct. 
, At the observatory we stopped a minute and 
i looked down on to the water. It was just the 
beginning of the mountain twilight. A trout 
.jumped and a whiff of pine smoke floated to 
us through the leaves from the hidden camp. 
We turned and followed up its trail. 
“Hello, Billy! Glad you’ve come!” Henry 
called, as we appeared, and he lifted up the fry¬ 
ing-pan, tilting it a little toward us to show the 
prospects for supper. 
“Well, it’s a fine place and I’m mighty glad to 
be here, but I hadn’t ought to have come, only 
Lucy took on so I had to, to satisfy her.” 
Billy was pretty hungry, but he had time to 
stop and visit with the dogs. All animals were 
pets to him and no matter how roughly he 
handled us, when he patted a dog his touch was 
as soft as velvet. There was never any harsh 
playing with animals, and his naturally mild 
voice was pitched a little lower when he talked 
to them. 
When we had finished supper, old Billy seemed 
well enough satisfied at just being in the atmos¬ 
phere of a camp and was in no hurry to begin 
fishing. He said he guessed he would “just stay 
around and see and smell things a little” that 
evening, and start his fishing in the morning. 
We sat around the fire until he had told us 
about all he could think of concerning the hap¬ 
penings at Oswenango since we left, and then 
we gave him a history of what had been going 
on at camp. Finally the talk turned to trout 
food, and he asked us what seemed to be the 
principal food in the Esopus. We told him 
minnows and then asked if he would not like to 
see the trout feeding, or rather watch when 
they were feeding. He said he would and we 
started down the creek by a path which led 
through the woods. 
Opposite the camp the channel ran on the 
further side of the stream, and on the camp side 
there was a strip of shallow water perhaps fifty 
yards wide, extending down stream a quarter 
of a mile. When the water is as low as it 
was on the night of Billy’s arrival, there is not 
sufficient current in the shallowest of this stretch 
to break the surface. In many places it is 
not over six inches deep, and along the shore 
the minnows are very plentiful. I had often 
watched them in the daylight, and thought ot 
the strenuous time they had when the big trout 
came there to feed at night, for many a tailless 
little fish was sailing about. 
We struck the creek at the lower end of the 
shallow water, and wading out into it a little 
distance, began walking up stream. The moon 
was full, and directly in front of us, so that 
the slightest agitation of the bright surface of 
the stream was plainly revealed. Directly sev¬ 
eral wakes started going in the direction of the 
channel. The amount of the disturbance showed 
that the fish making it was in most instances a 
large one. As we continued up stream, at 
nearly every step new wakes would form twenty 
or thirty feet ahead of us, and cutting across 
the line of our direction, make straight for the 
channel. All of these started from within ten 
or twenty feet of the shore, and often in water 
which was so shallow that the trout, not pick¬ 
ing his course carefully enough in his fright, 
would become entangled among small stones 
and have to flop his way out. 
We had often seen this sight before, and some 
times it was very aggravating, particularly when 
one had fished until dark, with poor luck, and 
then on his way to camp scared up such num¬ 
bers of big ones. 
Billy complained that his boots slipped con¬ 
siderably in the water, and said he would fix 
them when he got to camp, but we couldn’t 
think just how he was going to do it with any 
tools that we had there. However, it seemed 
that he had a way of his own. At the camp he 
produced from his luggage a small screw-driver, 
an awl, and some little round-headed screws. 
He pricked the soles and heels full of holes, 
and then put in the screws. No one but Billy 
or an Indian would ever have had the patience 
to do it, but it was a success, so far as pre¬ 
venting slipping was concerned. 
While he was working at it, he told us a good 
deal about the different experiments he had 
tried in the way of wading boots and shoes, 
covering the whole list from heavy boots to 
none at all. He said, “I had tried everything I 
could think or hear of and wasn’t satisfied with 
any of them. It seemed to me that a very finely 
made pair of leather boots ought to turn water 
if they were kept well oiled. I got the boots 
and tried them, but they leaked considerably 
around the joints, and I made up my mind that 
that was as much of a failure as any of the 
other experiments. Doc (that was his friend) 
came into the store and heard me talking about 
them, and told me they would work all right if 
I coated them over with linseed oil. He said 
to put it on the soles, too; so I gave them a good 
soaking, and when it got dry, I started out 
early one morning to fish on Mill Brook. There 
was a heavy dew that morning and I hadn’t 
much more than stepped on to the grass before 
both my feet went out from under me, and I 
fell down flat. I felt pretty silly about it, but 
there wasn’t anybody around to see me, and I 
gathered up and went on. Then I tried to climb 
over a rail fence where the rails were some wet 
and slippery—dumbed if I didn’t fall clear off 
the fence. Before I got to the stream I stepped 
on a little stick in the grass, and one foot went 
out sideways so quick it most put my hip out of 
joint. Well, I put in the whole day tumbling 
around. I couldn’t stand on anything, unless 
it was my head. If I got on to the bank I fell 
into the creek, and if I was in the creek, I would 
fall clear out of it on to the shore. When I 
got home, I asked Doc about it, and the dumbed 
old pill just grinned and said I didn’t put enough 
oil on.” 
It took Lassie and me quite a time to get 
accustomed to the new note in the sleeping 
chorus that night. I would not want to say 
that Billy snored, but I feel quite within the 
limits ol honesty when I say that his breathing 
was very distinct. Lassie seemed both annoyed 
and anxious, and as the moonlight shone upon 
her nest of boughs, I saw her often raise her 
head and look inquiringly toward the tent. 
Once or twice she made a stealthy trip of in¬ 
vestigation among the beds, and poked her nose 
quizzically up to Billy’s face. No such trifling 
matter could disturb Terry, though. He slept 
on as serenely as ever and any one who wanted 
to wake him up, after he had started in for a 
night’s rest would have to fall on top of him. 
Next morning when the broad daylight 
awakened Henry and I, Billy was gone. As I 
went to the spring, I looked down the stream 
and there he stood, half of his length in the 
water, whipping the channel toward which we 
had seen the trout run the night before. Op¬ 
posite him on a flat rock near the shore sat 
Terry patiently waiting and watching for him 
to come in. It is curious how early one will 
awake, and how quietly steal out, the first morn¬ 
ing at camp, when there is a good trout stream 
within hearing distance. 
