Dennis 
Ryan’s 
Tenderfoot 
By EDMUND F. L. JENNER 
Concluded from page 50. 
I T was not until the snow had fallen that I saw 
anything of Dennis Ryan; then he turned up 
at my office to request me to “go his bonds” 
in a petty lawsuit he was waging with one of 
his relatives. I asked him about his trip with 
Wilson, and this is what he told me: 
"That there man was the most deceivingest 
creature I ever went to the woods with. I’ve been 
with a good many and so has my brother Paddy, 
but never with the likes of him. When he got 
out of that devil carriage and unloaded his pile 
of dunnage and that rifle that looked like the 
smokestack of a sawmill, I thought I was in for 
a soft snap for sure. He looked so young and 
innocent I felt kind of sorry for him wander¬ 
ing round alone with that Frenchman, and I de¬ 
termined to give him a good time, even if we 
didn’t see a moose. There was quite a bit of 
stuff to carry as you’ll remember. I made four 
packs of it, a small one for him and three mid¬ 
dling sized ones for myself and Gus and Harry 
Lenoir, whom I hired to help us carry in the 
dunnage. He took his pack and the big rifle 
and a whole belt of cartridges and we started 
for Sam Brown’s old camp about noon. It is 
eight good miles to that camp, and by the time 
we got to it, it was time to start getting our 
night’s wood and fixing the roof, which was 
none too good. , I watched the young chap all 
the way in, and I could see that he wasn’t used 
to carrying a load or walking in moccasins. All 
the same he lugged his load like a man. While 
the boys were cutting wood I walked him off 
to look for sign. 
Now,’ says I, as soon as we were out of 
sight of the camp, ‘the fewer of us there are 
the more chance we stand. To-morrow morn¬ 
ing bright and early I’m going to let those two 
fellows go home. We have bread and potatoes 
enough to last us a fortnight. If they stay we’ll 
be out of grub in four or five days, for that Gus 
Lenoir can eat more at a sitting than two ordi¬ 
nary men can. To-morrow morning I’ll call if 
it’s fine, and if it isn’t, I’ll hunt up Sam Brown’s 
canoe and patch her. Then we can take the 
water for five or six miles, and a little portage 
will take us into a real good country where very 
few people go.’ 
“He said he was agreeable and we went back 
to camp. The Lenoir boys looked kind of blue 
when he didn’t offer them any whiskey, and I 
should have liked a drink myself; but I thought 
the less we had that night the more we’d have 
for the balance of the trip. It was no use to 
call next morning; there was too much wind. 
He paid the Lenoir boys off and they went home. 
I found the canoe, but by the time I got her 
patched it was blowing hard, and I didn’t care 
to risk it on the lake, as the water was high and 
the rocks were just covered enough to be dan¬ 
gerous. He sat watching me awhile, then he 
asked me how much water there was off the 
little bluff we were on. I told him the water 
was twenty feet deep. He hunted up a towel, 
stripped and went head first into that bitter cold 
water. I honestly thought I’d misjudged the 
depth and he’d hit his head on a rock and would 
never come up. Just about the time I was get¬ 
ting scared up he came, the best part of a gun¬ 
shot from shore. I never saw a man make such 
a dive in my life. 
“ 'Get your clothes on, Mr. Wilson,’ says I 
as soon as he came ashore. ‘I told you it was 
too windy for us to try the lake this morning, 
but I thought I was going out with a person 
and not with an otter.’ 
“ ‘That log hut’s very comfortable,’ says he, 
‘and I don’t know that I’m very anxious to 
paddle a canoe down the lake in this wind un¬ 
less you Have some special reason for wishing 
to go.’ 
“I told him that I d like to try the bog at the 
lower end of Rush Lake before anyone else went 
there, and he said it was all right. We loaded 
up the canoe, leaving some of our stuff at Sam 
Brown’s camp, and as good luck would have 
it we got to the camping ground on Rush Lake 
without any accident. 
‘‘You’ve paddled a canoe before you came*to 
this country,’ said I, when we had things fixed 
up snug. (I intended to use that camping 
ground for two days at least as it’s handy to 
several good bogs.) 
I never was in one of these bark canoes 
before,’ says he, ‘but last summer, a friend of 
mine and I went from London to York by water 
in a cedar canoe, and that’s quite a trip when 
you count all the different twists and turns. Of 
course there’s no portaging to do; when you 
can t get any further by water you haul your 
canoe on a wagon.’ 
Fhene was no calling that evening or next 
morning; it blew too hard, and we lay round 
camp making no noise and waiting for decent 
weather. In the afternoon I told Wilson I’d 
run down to the big portage and put up a notice 
there that we were camped at Rush Lake. It 
might save some crowd coming in on us and 
scaring everything. The moose works were 
thick around the bogs and I saw a big bull’s 
tracks right fresh. It was a good job I went, 
because the first thing I saw coming up the lake 
was two big canoes with three men in each of 
them. I fastened my notice to the big spruce 
and laid back in the bushes until they came to 
the landing and got out, then I came down the 
path to have a look at them. It was Luke Lon- 
nergan—him you and Paddy put the fine on for 
dogging two years ago—his brother Israel and 
four foreigners. 
“Luke was reading the notice when I came on 
him. 
‘‘‘Who’s up to Rush Lake with you?’ says he. 
“ ‘There’s only a foreigner the game warden 
brought out the day before yesterday,’ says I. 
‘We expect the warden and Mark Woodman 
most any time. I saw the canoes and I thought 
maybe they and my brother Paddy were taking 
a run up to see us. Paddy and his foreigner 
are camped over on Little Beavertail.’ 
“I edged up to the canoes as I was talking 
and I could see that the crowd had a gun each. 
Luke had his little black bird dog, too, the one 
he stole from the officer. I saw the foreigners 
look at one another when I said game warden. 
Thinks I to myself, “How many licenses are 
there in this crowd ?’ 
What sort of a foreigner have you got?’ 
says Luke. 
“‘Oh, just a boy,’says I. ‘He may want a shave 
when we come out if we stay in a fortnight, and 
he may only want a hair cut. He’s got a gun 
which weighs close on twelve pounds and cost 
over a hundred dollars.’ 
I he foreigners seemed civil decent fellows. 
One of them offered me a cigar and another one 
hauled a jug out of the canoe and gave me a 
big drink of extra good whisky. Then they com¬ 
menced asking me questions, and the more ques¬ 
tions they asked the surer I was that they were 
shy on licenses. I could size the outfit up all 
light. 1 hey wanted moose, of course, but if 
they couldn’t get any they’d take all the par¬ 
tridges that came their way. I didn’t want any 
bird dog yapping round Rush Lake or Little 
Beaverkill, so I let on they were likely to meet 
you or Paddy or the both of you if they came 
there. It worked all right. They gave me an¬ 
other drink and another smoke and got back 
into their canoes. Luke and Israel didn’t say 
much. They looked mighty sour, though. 
“When I got back to camp I found Wilson 
had fastened a small ash pole crosswise between 
two trees, about eight or nine feet from the 
ground, and was cutting up all sorts of didoes 
on it, the same you see those fellows do in a 
circus. He had everything off but his pants and 
his shoes. ‘I always take some sort of exercise,’ 
