His “live eye,” as he called it, had a wide range of expression. It was shrewd and quizzical at times, occasionally merry, and often sad. It would glitter fiercely when he talked of some of his “aversions,” or told of wrongs he had suffered. In his reminiscent moods it would remain half closed, and there was a certain far-away look that seemed to wander in obscurity. This lone eye was the distinguishing feature of a personality that seemed to dominate the little world around it.
I asked this ancient mariner if he had many visitors. He replied that the artists bothered him some, but outside of that he seldom saw anybody “’cept them I have business with, an’ them two guys that live about three miles apart down the shore, an’ the game warden that comes ’long oncet in a while. If people commence buttin’ in ’ere I’m goin’ to git out, an’ go ’bout forty miles north, where I can’t hear the cars. I ain’t got much to move. The stuff’ll all go in the boat, an’ I’ll just take my ol’ flannel collar an’ the sock I keep it in, an’ skip.”
He seemed to feel that he could properly criticize most of the people he had met, being practically free from frailties himself. Although he was somewhat of a pessimist, there was seldom much heartfelt bitterness in what he said. His mental attitude was usually that of a patronizing and indulgent observer. His satirical comments were generally tempered with unconscious humor. He knew that out beyond the margins of the yellow hills lay a world of sin, for he had been in it, and his friend Bill was in it now. His philosophy did not contemplate the possible redemption of anybody he had ever met in the dunes, with one or two exceptions. He thought that most of them were “headed fer the coals.”
“Happy Cal,” was one of his pet aversions, and from a human standpoint, he considered him a total loss. They had once been friends, but Sipes was now “miffed” and there was rancor in his heart. Cal had “gone off som’eres,” but the wound was unhealed. The trouble originated over the ownership of a bunch of tangled set-lines, which had got loose somewhere out in the lake, and drifted ashore some years ago. It was conceded that neither of them had owned the lines originally, but Cal thought they ought to belong to him as he had seen them first.
Sipes descried the soggy mass and carried it up the beach to his shanty. Cal came after the prize before daylight the next morning, but found that he had been forestalled. Sipes spent two days in getting the tangles out and had stretched the lines out to dry. One night they were mysteriously visited and cut to pieces.
A few days later a piece of board, nailed crosswise to a stake which was driven into the sand, appeared about a mile down the shore, between the two shanties. On it was the crude inscription:—“The Partys that cut them lines is knone.”
While protesting that he was perfectly innocent, Cal looked upon this as a deadly personal affront, and the entente cordiale was forever broken.
After this Sipes bored a small hole in the side of his shanty, through which he could secretly reconnoiter the landscape in Cal’s direction when occasion required. He was satisfied that Cal would be up to something some day that he would catch him at, and thus even the score.
I had noticed a similar hole in the side of Cal’s hut, during a day that I had spent with him two years before.