Chapter I: In Which I Begin My Story

“Beneath a hemlock grim and dark,
Where shrub and vine are intertwining,
Our shanty stands, well roofed with bark,
On which the cheerful blaze is shining.
The smoke ascends in spiral wreath;
With upward curve the sparks are trending;
The coffee kettle sings beneath
Where sparks and smoke with leaves are blending.”

Joe Wayring’s voice rang out loud and clear, and the words of his song
were repeated by the echoes from a dozen different points among the
hills by which the camp was surrounded on every side. Joe was putting
the finishing touches to the roof of a bark shanty; Roy Sheldon, with
the aid of a double-bladed camp ax, was cutting a supply of hard wood
to cook the trout he had just cleaned; and Arthur Hastings was sitting
close by picking browse for the beds. The scene of their camp was a
spring-hole, located deep in the forest twelve miles from Indian Lake.
Although it was a noted place for trout, it was seldom visited by the
guests of the hotels for the simple reason that they did not know that
there was such a spring-hole in existence, and the guides were much
too sharp to tell them of it.

Hotel guides, as a class, are not fond of work, and neither will they
take a guest very far beyond the sound of their employer’s dinner
horn. The landlords hire them by the month and the guides get just so
much money, no matter whether their services are called into
requisition or not. If business is dull and the guests few in number,
the guides loaf around the hotel in idleness, and of course the less
they do the less they are inclined to do. If they are sent out with a
guest, they take him over grounds that have been hunted and fished
until there is neither fur, fin, nor feather left, cling closely to
the water-ways, avoiding even the shortest “carries,” their sole
object being to earn their wages with the least possible exertion.
They don’t care whether the guest catches any fish or not. But our
three friends, Joe Wayring, Roy Sheldon, and Arthur Hastings, were not
dependent upon the hotel guides for sport during their summer outings.
Being perfectly familiar with the country for miles around Indian
Lake, they went wherever their fancy led them, and with no fear of
getting lost.

“And on the stream a light canoe
Floats like a freshly fallen feather—
A fairy thing that will not do
For broader seas and stormy weather.
Her sides no thicker than the shell
Of Ole Bull’s Cremona fiddle;
The man who rides her will do well
To part his scalp-lock in the middle,”

sang Joe, backing off and looking approvingly at his work. “There,
fellows, that roof is tight, and now it can rain as soon as it
pleases. With two acres of trout right in front of the door, and a
camp located so far from the lake that we are not likely to be
disturbed by any interlopers—what more could three boys who want to be
lazy ask for?”

“There’s one thing I would like to ask for,” replied Roy, “and that is
the assurance that Tom Bigden and his cousins will go back to Mount
Airy without trying to come any tricks on us. I wonder what brought
them up here any way?”

“Why, they came after their rods, of course,” answered Arthur. “You
know I sent them a despatch stating that their rods were in Mr.
Hanson’s possession, and that they could get them by refunding the
money that Hanson had paid Jake Coyle for them.”

“But they have been loafing around the lake for a whole week, doing
nothing but holding stolen interviews with Matt Coyle and his boys,”
said Roy. “I tell you I don’t like the way those worthies put their
heads together. I believe they are in ca-hoots. If they are not, how
does it come that Tom and his cousins can see Matt as often as they
want to, while the guides and landlords, who are so very anxious to
have him arrested, can not find him or obtain any satisfactory news of
him?”

“That’s the very reason they can’t find him—because they want to have
him arrested, and Matt knows it,” observed Joe. “But why Tom doesn’t
reveal Matt’s hiding-place to the constable is more than I can
understand. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps Matt has some sort
of a hold on those boys, and that they are afraid to go against him?”

“I have thought of it,” replied Arthur. “I have never been able to get
it out of my head that Tom acted suspiciously on the day your canvas
canoe was stolen. He played his part pretty well, but I believed then,
and I believe now, that he knew that canoe was gone before he came
back to the beach.”

“I know Tom didn’t show much enthusiasm when we started after that
bear, and that he did not go very far from the pond,” assented Joe.
“It is possible that he saw Matt steal my canoe, and that he made no
effort to stop him; but I think you are mistaken when you say that
they are in ca-hoots. I don’t believe they have any thing in common.
Tom is much too high-toned for that. I know that he has been seen in
Matt’s company a time or two, but I am of the opinion that they met by
accident and not by appointment.”

“But Tom knew the officers were looking for Matt, and what was the
reason he didn’t tell them that he had seen him?” demanded Arthur.

“He probably would if he hadn’t thought that we were the ones that
wanted him arrested,” replied Joe. “Tom and his cousins do not like
us, and Matt Coyle might steal us poor, and they would never lift a
hand or say a word to prevent it. But we are safe from them now. Even
if they knew where to find us, Matt and his boys are much too lazy to
walk twelve miles through the thick woods just to get into a fight
with us.”

Perhaps they were, and perhaps they were not. Time will show.

If you have read the first volume of the “Forest and Stream Series,”
you will recollect that the story it contained was told by “Old
Durability,” Joe Wayring’s Fly-rod. In concluding his interesting
narrative, Fly-rod said that he would step aside and give place to his
“accommodating friend,” the Canvas Canoe, who, in the second volume of
the series, would describe some of the incidents that came under his
notice while he was a prisoner in the bands of the Indian Lake
vagabonds, Matt Coyle and his two worthless boys, Jake and Sam. I am
the Canvas Canoe, at your service, and I am now ready to redeem that
promise.

You will remember that the last duty I performed for my master, Joe
Wayring, was to take him and Fly-rod up to the “little perch hole,”
leaving Arthur Hastings and Roy Sheldon in the pond to angle for black
bass. Joe preferred to fish for perch, because he was afraid to trust
his light tackle in a struggle with so gamey a foe as a bass; but, as
luck would have it, he struck one the very first cast he made, and got
into a fight that was enough to make any angler’s nerves thrill with
excitement.

The battle lasted half an hour; and when it was over and the fish
safely landed, Joe discovered that it was growing dark. While he was
putting Fly-rod away in his case I happened to look up the creek, and
what should I see there but the most disreputable looking scow I ever
laid my eyes on? I had never seen him before, but I knew the crew he
carried, for I had had considerable experience with them. They were
the squatter and his boys, who, as you know, had sworn vengeance
against Joe Wayring and his friends, because Joe’s father would not
permit them to live on his land.

Matt and his young allies discovered Joe before the latter saw them,
and made an effort to steal alongside and capture him before he knew
that there was any danger near; but one of the impatient boys
carelessly allowed his paddle to rub against the side of the scow, and
the sound alarmed Joe, who at once took to the water and struck out
for shore, leaving me to my fate. But I never blamed Joe for that,
because I knew he could not have done any thing else. He had paid out
a good deal of rope in order to place himself in the best position for
casting, and he could not haul it in and raise the anchor before his
enemies would be upon him.

“So that’s your game, is it?” shouted the squatter, when he saw Joe
pulling for the shore with long lusty strokes. “Wal, it suits us I
reckon. Never mind the boat, Jakey. She’s fast anchored and will stay
there till we want her. Take after the ’ristocrat whose dad won’t let
honest folks live onto his land less’n they’ve got a pocketful of
money to pay him for it. Jest let me get a good whack at him with my
paddle, an’ he’ll stop, I bet you.”

Now we know that Matt didn’t tell the truth when he said that Joe
Wayring’s father would not let any one live on his land except those
who had money to pay for the privilege. Mr. Wayring was one of the
most liberal citizens in Mount Airy. Nearly all the men who were
employed as guides and boatmen by the summer visitors lived in neat
little cottages that he had built on purpose for them, and for which
he never charged them a cent of rent; and when Matt Coyle and his
family came into the lake with a punt load of goods, and took
possession of one of his lots, and proceeded to erect a shanty upon it
without asking his permission, Mr. Wayring did not utter one word of
protest. It is true that he was not very favorably impressed with the
appearance of the new-comers, but he thought he would give them an
opportunity to show what they were before he ordered them off his
grounds. If they proved to be honest, hard-working people they might
stay and welcome, and he would treat them as well as he treated the
other inhabitants of “Stumptown.”

But it turned out that Matt Coyle was neither honest nor hard-working.
He had once been a hanger-on about the hotels at Indian Lake. He
called himself an independent guide (neither of the hotels would have
any thing to do with him), but, truth to tell, he did not do much
guiding. He gained a precarious subsistence by hunting, trapping,
fishing, and stealing. It was easier to steal a living than it was to
earn it by hunting and trapping, and Matt’s depredations finally
became so numerous and daring that the guides hunted him down as they
would a bear or a wolf that had preyed upon their sheep-folds, and
when they caught him ordered him out of the country. To make sure of
his going they destroyed every article of his property that they could
get their hands on, thus forcing him, as one of the guides remarked,
to go off somewhere and steal a new outfit.

Where Matt and his enterprising family went after that no one knew.
They disappeared, and for a few weeks were neither seen nor heard of;
but in due time they rowed their punt into Mirror Lake, as I have
recorded, and Matt and his boys at once sought employment as guides
and boatmen. But here again they were doomed to disappointment. The
managers of the different hotels saw at a glance that they were not
proper persons to be trusted on the lake with a boatload of women and
children, and told them very decidedly that their services were not
needed. The truth was they drank more whisky than water, and guides of
that sort were not wanted in Mount Airy.

Matt and his boys next tried fishing as a means of earning a
livelihood; but no one could have made his salt at that, because the
guests sojourning at the hotels and boarding houses, with the
assistance of the regular guides, kept all the tables abundantly
supplied. This second failure made the squatters angry, and they
concluded that affairs about Mount Airy were not properly managed, and
they would “run the town” to suit themselves. But they could not do
that either, for they were promptly arrested and thrust into the
calaboose.

After they had been put in there twice, the trustees concluded that
they were of no use in Mount Airy, and that they had better go
somewhere else. Accordingly Matt received a notice to pull down his
shanty and clear out. The officer who was intrusted with the writ had
considerable trouble in serving it, but he had more in compelling the
squatter to vacate the lot of which he had taken unauthorized
possession. Matt and his boys showed fight, while the old woman, who,
to quote from Frank Noble, “proved to be the best man in the party,”
threw hot water about in the most reckless fashion. After a spirited
battle the representatives of law and order came off victoriously, and
Matt and his belongings were tumbled unceremoniously into the punt and
shoved out into the lake. This made them almost frantic; and before
they pulled away they uttered the most direful threats against those
who had been instrumental in driving them out of Mount Airy “because
they were poor and didn’t have no good clothes to wear,” and they even
went so far as to threaten to burn Mr. Wayring’s house. But you will
remember that it was Tom Bigden, a boy who hated Joe for just nothing
at all, who put that idea into Matt’s head.

Being once more adrift in the world, the squatter made the best of his
way to Sherwin’s pond to carry out certain other plans that had been
suggested to him by that same Tom Bigden, who never could be easy
unless he was getting himself or somebody else into trouble. Between
the lake and the pond there were twelve miles of rapids. Having run
them scores of times under the skillful guidance of my master, I may
be supposed to be tolerably familiar with them, and to this day I can
not understand how Matt ever succeeded in getting his clumsy old punt
to the bottom of them in safety. He must have had a hard time of it,
for the bow of his craft was so badly battered by the rocks that it
was a mystery how he ever took it across the pond and up the creek to
the place where he made his temporary camp. With his usual caution he
concealed his shanty in a grove of evergreens, and waited as patiently
as he could for something to “turn up.” Tom Bigden had assured him
that he could make plenty of money by simply keeping his eyes open,
but Matt did not find it so.

“I don’t b’lieve that ’ristocrat knew what he was talkin’ about when
he said that some of them sailboats up there in the lake would be sure
to break loose, an’ that I could make money by ketchin’ ’em as they
come through the rapids, an’ givin’ ’em up to their owners,” said the
squatter one day, when his supply of corn meal and potatoes began to
show signs of giving out. “There ain’t nary one of ’em broke loose
yet, an’ if any one of them p’inters an’ hound dogs that we’ve heared
givin’ tongue in the woods ever lost their bearin’s I don’ know it,
fur they never come nigh me.”

“He said that if the things he was talkin’ about didn’t happen of
theirselves, he’d make ’em happen,“ suggested Jake.

“What do you reckon he meant by that?”

“Why, it was a hint to you to go up to the lake some dark night, an’
turn the boats loose,” replied Jake. “Then they’d come down, an’ we
could ketch ’em an’ hold fast to ’em till we was offered a reward fur
givin’ ’em up. But, pap, since I’ve seed them rapids, I don’t b’lieve
that no livin’ boat could ever come through ’em without smashin’
herself all to pieces, less’n there was somebody aboard of her to keep
her off’n the rocks.”

“No more do I,” answered Matt, “an’ I shan’t bother with ’em, nuther.
I ain’t forgot that they’ve got a calaboose up there to Mount Airy,
an’ that they’d jest as soon shove a feller into it as not. But
something has got to be done, or else we’ll go hungry for want of grub
to eat.”

So saying, Matt shouldered his rifle, and set out to hunt up his
dinner, and on the same day Joe Wayring and his two chums, accompanied
by Tom Bigden, and his cousins, Ralph and Loren Farnsworth, ran the
rapids into Sherwin’s Pond, to fish for bass. They caught a fine
string, as every one did who went there, and were talking about going
ashore to cook their breakfast, when they discovered a half-grown bear
on the shore of the pond. Of course they made haste to start in
pursuit of him—all except Tom Bigden. The latter told himself that the
bear did not belong to him, that it was no concern of his whether he
were killed or not, and sat down on a log and fought musquitoes while
waiting for Joe and the rest to tire themselves out in the chase and
come back.

Now Matt Coyle had his eye on that bear, and wanted to shoot him too,
for, as I have said, his larder was nearly empty. He was ready to do
something desperate when he saw Joe and his companions paddle ashore
and frighten the game, but presently it occurred to him that he might
profit by it. He knew that the boys would never have come so far from
home without bringing a substantial lunch with them, and as they had
left their canoes unguarded on the beach, what was there to hinder him
from sneaking up through the bushes and stealing that lunch? Turn
about was fair play. And, while he was about it, what was there to
prevent him from taking his pick of the canoes? Then he would have
something to work with. He could go up to Indian Lake and make another
effort to establish himself there as independent guide; and, if he
failed to accomplish his object, he could paddle about in his canoe,
rob every unguarded camp he could find, and make the sportsmen who
came there for recreation so sick of those woods that they would never
visit them again. In that way he could ruin the hotels as well as the
guides who were so hostile to him. It was a glorious plan, Matt told
himself, and while he was turning it over in his mind he suddenly
found himself face to face with Tom Bigden.

You know the conversation that passed between these two worthies, and
remember how artfully Tom went to work to increase the unreasonable
enmity which Matt Coyle cherished against Joe Wayring. After taking
leave of Tom, the squatter plundered all the canoes that were drawn up
beside me on the beach, first making sure of the baskets and bundles
that contained the lunches, gave them all into my keeping, and shoved
out into the pond with me. If I had possessed the power wouldn’t I
have turned him overboard in short order? Matt was so clumsy and
awkward that I was in hopes he would capsize me and spill himself out;
but, although he could not make me ride on an even keel, he managed to
keep me right side up, and, much to my disgust, I carried him safely
across the pond and up the creek to his shanty.

As the squatter was impatient to begin the business of guiding so that
he could make some money before the season was over, and anxious to
get beyond reach of the officers of the law who would soon be on his
track, he lost no time in breaking camp and setting out for Indian
Lake. Before he went he burned his shanty and punt, so that the Mount
Airy sportsmen could not find shelter in the one or use the other in
fishing in the pond. He spent half an hour in trying to take me to
pieces, so that he could carry me in his hand as if I were a valise,
and finally giving it up as a task beyond his powers, he raised me to
his shoulder and fell in behind his wife and boys, who led the way
toward Indian Lake.

During the short time I remained in Matt Coyle’s possession I fared
well enough, for I was too valuable an article to be maltreated; but I
despised the company I was obliged to keep and the work I was expected
to do. Matt’s first care was to lay in a supply of provisions for the
use of his family; and as he had no money at his command and no
immediate prospect of earning any, of course he expected to steal
every thing he wanted. This was not a difficult task, for long
experience had made him and his boys expert in the line of foraging.
Nearly all the guides cultivated little patches of ground and raised a
few pigs and chickens, and when their duties called them away from
home there was no one left to guard their property except their wives
and children. The latter could not stand watch day and night, and
consequently it was no trouble at all for Matt and his hopeful sons to
rob a hen-roost or a smokehouse as often as they felt like it. But, as
it happened, the very first foraging expedition he sent out, after he
made his new camp about two miles from Indian Lake, resulted most
disastrously for Matt Coyle. He ordered Jake and me to forage on Mr.
Swan, the genial, big-hearted guide of whom you may have heard
something in “The Story of a Fly-rod;” or, rather, Jake was to do the
stealing, and I was to bring back the plunder he secured.

The young scapegrace had no difficulty in getting hold of a side of
bacon and filling a bag with potatoes, which he dug from the soil with
his hands, but there his good fortune ended. While he was making his
way up the creek toward home, he was discovered by Joe Wayring and his
two friends, Roy and Arthur, who were going to Indian Lake for their
usual summer’s outing. Of course they at once made a determined effort
to recapture me, and Jake in his mad struggle to escape ran me upon a
snag and sunk me, thus putting it out of his father’s power to go into
the business of independent guiding. The fights that grew out of that
night’s work were numerous and desperate, and Matt declared that he
would “even up” with the boys if he had to wait ten years for a chance
to do it.

It was the work of but a few moments for my master, with the aid of
his friends, to bring me back to the surface of the water where I
belonged. He took me home with him when his outing was over, and there
I lived during the winter in comparative quiet, while Joe and his
chums were made the victims of so many petty annoyances that it was a
wonder to me how they kept their temper as well as they did. Matt
Coyle and his boys could not do any thing to trouble them, because
they were afraid to show themselves about the village; but Tom Bigden
and his cousins were alert and active. They bothered Joe in every
conceivable way. They made a lifelong enemy of Mars by sending him
home through the streets with a tin can tied to his tail; they shot at
Roy Sheldon’s tame pigeons as often as the birds ventured within range
of their long bows; they overturned Joe’s sailboat after he had hauled
it out on the beach and housed it for the winter; and one night I
heard them talk seriously of setting fire to the boathouse. Loren and
Ralph Farnsworth, however, were not willing to go as far as that,
knowing, as they did, that arson was a State’s prison offense, but
they agreed to Tom’s proposition to break into the boathouse and carry
off “that old canvas canoe that Joe seemed to think so much of,”
because they could do as much mischief of that sort as they pleased,
and no blame would be attached to them. It would all be laid at Matt
Coyle’s door.

If I had been able to speak to him I would have told Tom that he was
mistaken when he said this, for Joe Wayring knew well enough whom he
had to thank for every thing that happened to him that winter. Tom and
his allies forgot that their foot prints in the snow and the marks of
their skates on the ice were, as Roy expressed it, “a dead give away.”

Joe, however, did not say or do any thing to show that he suspected
Tom, for he was a boy who liked to live in peace with every body; but
when he came down to the boathouse the next morning and found that
some one had been tampering with the fastenings of the door, he took
me on his shoulder and carried me to his room, where I remained until
the winter was passed and the boating season opened.

In the meantime I made the acquaintance of Fly-rod, who has told you a
portion of my history, and who was as green a specimen as I ever met;
but what else could you expect of a fellow who had never seen any
thing of the world or caught a fish! A few Saturdays spent at the
spring-holes and along the banks of the trout streams proved him to be
a strong, reliable rod, and by the time the summer vacation came Joe
had learned to put a good deal of confidence in him. One of the most
noteworthy exploits Fly-rod ever performed was capturing that big bass
at the perch-hole. That was on the day that Matt Coyle and his boys
came down the creek in their scow and made a captive of me and chased
my master through the woods; and this brings me back to my story.