Hartley’s only reply was to start again for the lake.
“Come back! Come back!” cried Connorton. “I won’t mention business again to-day.”
Hartley returned and stretched himself out in the sun to let his clothes dry.
“We’ll stay in camp to-day?” suggested Connorton, hopefully.
“Wouldn’t do at all!” replied Hartley. “We must fish, if only as an excuse for coming.”
Pursuant to this idea, Hartley presently set out with Joe. Connorton, after a little hesitation, followed with the other guide, leaving Paulson in camp. Connorton felt that he could not rest easy unless he had this reckless man directly under his observation all the time; and the reckless man was not unmindful of this espionage.
“Joe,” said the reckless man, when he saw that Connorton was following, “we won’t do much fishing to-day, but we’ll have some sport, just the same. The fish are here all the time, but Connorton isn’t. And Connorton, Joe, is afraid something is going to happen to me. That being the case, let us enjoy ourselves! Let us lead him afar on land and sea, and tramp him over portages, and make him miss his dinner, and give him a real good time generally. Of course, Joe, it is downright cruel to make a man like Connorton miss a meal, but let us be downright cruel! Proceed, Joe!”
Joe proceeded, and that he acted up to his instructions was proved by the many and bitter things that Connorton said about “that crazy inventor” in the course of the day—the hardest day of his life, he afterward asserted.
But Hartley was not satisfied. “I think, Joe,” he complained, as they were returning to camp in the late afternoon, “that this is beginning to pall a little on Big Splash. Too much work and too little excitement. He needs a thrill, Joe, to revive his interest in the proceedings. Let us give him the thrill. Let us alarm him. Let us make him think that he is going to lose little Willie, the human prize! I have several thrills in mind, Joe, but let us begin mildly. Will you oblige me by rocking the boat, so to speak. Not too much, you know, for I have no wish to go into the drink again, and that’s what would probably happen if I tried to do it myself.”
Joe replied with a grunt, as usual; but presently the canoe began to take a most erratic course and to betray alarming symptoms of crankiness. The Indian seemed to be doing his utmost to steady it, and several times prevented an upset by throwing his weight in just the right direction; but the more he strove the worse it rocked.