They were presently turning in to the left, and starting to ascend the Little Machias; a pretty stream, which some years back used to fairly teem with game-fish, but which, like many another river in Maine, has felt the effect of the continual work of thousands of fishermen, and worse than that, the sly netting at the hands of lawless poachers.
Step Hen was interested in many things that opened to their view as they went on, and his two companions did the paddling; for he had been working quite some time himself, and was entitled to a resting spell.
This was a new trait in Step Hen. Time had been when he would hardly notice a single thing when out in the woods, unless his attention was especially directed to it by a comrade. But it was so no longer; and the way his awakening came about, as mentioned in a previous story, is worthy of being recorded again, as showing what a trifling thing may start a boy to thinking, and observing the myriad of interesting events that are constantly occurring around him, no matter where he may happen to be at the time, in a crowded city, or alone in a vast solitude.
Step Hen had once come upon a humble little tumble-bug, striving to push a ball four times as big as himself up a forlorn road, at a point where there was a “thank-you-mum,” intended to throw the water aside during a heavy rain, and save the road from being guttered.
He had grown so deeply interested in seeing the little creature try again and again to overcome the stupendous difficulties that faced it, that he lay there for half an hour, watching; clapping his hands when he thought success had come, and feeling deeply sorry when a slip caused the ball to roll back again, often upsetting the bug, and passing over its body.
The astonishing pluck of the humble little bug had aroused the admiration of the boy; and in the end he had picked up both ball and bug, and placed them safely above the baffling ascent in the road. And after that hour Step Hen awoke to the fact that an observing boy need never lack for something intensely interesting to chain his attention, no matter where he might be. All he had to do was to keep his eyes open, and look. Nature had ten thousand deeply interesting and curious things that appeal to the one who knows how to enjoy them.
And so from that day Step Hen was noticed to be eagerly on the watch for new sights. He asked many questions that proved his mind had awakened; and Thad knew that that half hour when the scout had lain alongside the mountain road down in North Carolina, had possibly been the turning point in his career; for he would never again be the same old careless, indifferent Step Hen of the past.
“There comes another canoe down the river!” suddenly cried Bumpus, who was still squatting in the bow of the leading canoe, industriously rubbing his right shoulder as though it pained him considerably; a fact Thad noticed, and which had caused him to promise that he would take a look at the lame part when they stopped for their midday meal, very soon now.
There was only one man in the canoe that was approaching, and presently Jim Hasty remarked that he knew him.
“It’s sure Hen Parry, from up where I used to hold out,” he went on to say; and then called out to the approaching Maine guide, as his make-up pronounced the other to be; “hullo, Hen, howd’ye? Glad tuh see yuh. Come closer, and shake hands. How’s everybody up to the old place?”