He sprang, murmuring a sentence, to a rock. Then to a farther one. In the middle of the river he stood in sharp sunshine, and cast into shadows under the bank. Where the brown hackle touched a ripple, there was a break; his hand lifted instantaneously, and a splashing bit of color followed the glint of the leader—a fish was on. I watched, held with the never-failing fascination of the game, as the lad played cleverly the lively half-pounder in the narrow pool, keeping him away from rocks, away from shore, giving him no slack and no pull, for he was lightly hooked.
As I watched I heard a click, as of a camera, and I turned quickly, and with that, before I had time to investigate, I turned back in astonishment. Floating up the stretch of still-water sounded the most unexpected noise on earth—human voices. As I looked, around the bend below paddled two canoes, loaded heavily with men. I stared, dazed. Who were they? What did they want on our particular planet? There were seven, four guides and three messieurs.
At this point there was a bang on the rocks close by and I was blown sideways by a whirlwind. A flash of bare legs and gray corduroy accompanied the phenomenon. Bob had dropped the rod in midstream and left the trout to play himself and had taken to the woods; the forest crashed as his flying feet fled up the portage.
I gathered myself. The canoes were within two hundred yards now, and Walter stood by me glaring a welcome; for it annoys him to be reminded in the woods that the earth is not his private star. Who were these interlopers? A deep, fresh voice called out:
“Good morning, Mrs. Morgan.”
And I knew. It was, of course, Bob’s friends, the boys not expected for two days, Buck and Donnie and Hal Harriman. Buck I had known before; a magnificent youngster of six feet two, he towered between desiccated-looking guides in the middle of the first canoe and sent questions to me in trumpet tones.
“Where’s Bob, Mrs. Morgan? Do you mind our getting here sooner? Isn’t Bob up yet? This forest is a perfect peach. Are we upsetting things, coming ahead? Do you mind? Where’s that beggar Bob?”
The huge young brute was out on the rocks and mangling my hand with a friendly grip, while he introduced the two others, clean-cut, bright-faced lads like himself. Walter had got back his hospitality, and we both talked steadily to give time for the refugee to make arrangements; we wondered what arrangements he might make. It seemed to me a case of exposure or suicide, but the cub would have to decide which. And meantime, of course, the burning question was Bob’s whereabouts.
“The men at the camp told us you were here; our guides knew the way, so we thought we’d come on and meet you,” the boys explained. “But they said Bob was along, too. Isn’t he?”
By then we had told them four times that we were delighted to have them sooner, and had said all that the subject would bear about canoes and paddling. The moment had arrived when Bob had to be mentioned.