"You will have to change your location, Risk," said Lund, who had accompanied them; "for you must shoot on the water-line, now the ice has opened."
"Davies and I go home to-morrow," answered he. "I regret to leave with such a prospect before us, but business presses; and besides, there are new dangers now which I care not to face."
"Ay, ay! you're right, Mr. Risk," said Lund; "and although I am glad to have you around me, I shall be glad this year when I see the last of you safely across the Western Bar."
"There, there, Lund," said Risk; "they're young, smart, have good boats, and, what is more, know well how to use them; and if I were less clumsy and old, I would no more fear any danger here than I would at home. Don't frighten the young lads with your nonsense, but let us get home to supper, and, as it is our last night together, have a cosy evening in the kitchen, and a good story from Ben and Charley here."
The proposition was acceded to, and after supper, Ben, with little urging, commenced a legend of the North Shore, even now related by the farmers around the winter's hearth with full faith in its veracity. He termed it by its local name
"Jim Mountain's Fight with the Devil."
"Fifty years ago Jim Mountain, of Goose Creek, was as stout and jovial a young farmer of twenty-five, as there was in his section. No ship-launch frame-raising, logging-bee, or dance, was considered complete without him, and while his strength was almost equal to that of any two of his companions, his merry laugh was so infectious that even envy couldn't resist joining in, when public opinion pronounced him 'the best man in the county.'
"He soon married the daughter of a well-to-do farmer, and then, for the first time, it appeared that his love of 'divershin' and whiskey, had grown by what it fed on, and poor Mary dreaded the approach of market-day, as he seldom returned from the shire town altogether sober, and often not until late into the next day.
"It was in vain that his blooming Mary entreated, coaxed, cried, and threatened; he never lost his temper; often, indeed, promised amendment, but did in the end about the same as usual. At last the merchant with whom he traded, a man of some little medical knowledge, finished their business interview with the following bit of advice:—