“I swan, Mirandy!” exclaimed the young hunter, “the girl as can manage a bull moose in callin’ season is the Queen of the Forest, sure. I take off my cap to yer majesty!”
“Put it on again, Dave,” said she, not half displeased, “and we’ll go set the night lines.”
Behind the point, hidden in a thicket of mixed huckleberry and ironwood, they found the wooden canoe, or dugout, in good condition. Dave ran it down into the water, and Miranda tossed in a roll of stout cod-line, with four large hooks depending from it, at four-foot intervals, by drop strings a foot and a half in length. The hooks she proceeded to bait from the tin kettle.
“Why don’t ye have more hooks on sech a len’th of line?” inquired Dave.
“Don’t want to catch more togue than we can eat,” explained Miranda. “It’s no fun catching them this way, and they’re not much good salted.”
There was but one paddle, and this Dave captured. “You sit in the bow, Mirandy, an’ see to the lines, an’ I’ll paddle ye out,” said he.
But Miranda would have none of it. “Look here, Dave,” she exclaimed, “I’m doing this, and you’re just a visitor. I declare, I’m almost sorry I brought you along. You just sit where you’re put, and do as I tell you, or you won’t come with me again.”
The young man squatted himself meekly on his knees, a little forward of amidship, but not far enough for his superior weight to put the canoe down by the bow. Then Miranda stepped in delicately, seated herself on a thwart at the stern, and dipped her paddle with precise and masterful stroke. The canoe shot noiselessly out of the shadow and into the unrippled sheen. Just off the point, about twenty yards from shore, lay a light wooden float at anchor. Beside this Miranda brought her canoe to a standstill, backing water silently with firm flexures of her wrist. To a rusty staple in the float she fastened one end of the line.
“Deep water off this here point, I reckon,” commented Dave.
“Of course,” answered Miranda. “The togue only lie in deep water.”