When it stopped raining we continued our journey up the ravine to higher ground, and walked through the woods. We finally emerged into the open country, made a long detour, and returned to the boat.
A sketch had been made of the shanty, but we had found no “patritches.” The old man was greatly elated over the recovery of the long lost “kittle.” Its present value was at least questionable, but he was happy, and he had carried it tenderly during the trip.
“When I git home,” said he, “I’ll git some sodder an’ plug it up. If you’ve got some o’ them kind of seegars with you, that you gave me the other day, I think it ’ud be nice fer us to smoke one on the strength o’ me findin’ my kittle.”
The disreputable utensil was stowed carefully in the boat, with the rest of our belongings, and finally reached its rightful home.
The adaptation of particular minds to particular forms of activity is one of the most difficult problems of our highly specialized social structure. Happiness and achievement are largely dependent upon mental and physical harmony between the man and his task. The learned professions, like all other mediums of human activity, carry with them in their progress the “misfits” and the “by-products” which are inseparable from them.
Poor old Doc Looney is both a misfit and a by-product. He is innocently drifting in waters that are beyond his depth, and while he is of little value in the world, his “powerful remedies,” “potential herbs” and “infusions” will probably find but few victims.
The Mysterious Tracks
CHAPTER IX
THE MYSTERIOUS PROWLER
ONE fall there were queer happenings in the dune country. The story is nearly twelve miles long, the details extending all along the shore, from Happy Cal’s shanty to a point away north of where old Sipes sweeps the horizon through his little “spotter.”