The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1900-09-01


LOoH-Forcst Romance.
F'RGUSON the guide, called
IT Fergy for short, squat, muscu-
IT lar aid brown, with small.
dark eyes peering from under
~ a dropping brim, sat on the
middle thwart of the boat In
the summer sun Round lake lay placid.
Not ripple crinkled it. Three grea,
pines and hemlocks which grew to the
waters edge. were motionless in the noon
neat Over the wide and mirror-like ex
panse the quavering, wailing cry of the
loon sounded. A blue, heron stood gaunt
upon a wooded point, waiting for his
luncheon to swim by and at the other end
or the lake mother teal led her brown.
brood Of seven by devious ways in and out
among the PUSHES While Usually the wa
ter rippled, as if against a beach. upon the
hps OF the ily-pads, on this day not a
murmur came from them. Under their
shelter the huge black bass reposed, MOI
might any form of lure, live frog or min
now, phantom minnow or spoon, fly or
white salt pork, tempt him to come forth.
The other man in the boat listened while
Fergy talked. He pays Fergy 81 day to
maui him about into secret places where
the fsh are known to be, and to handle
the craft as only a master can handle it
when that shooting wolf of the Western
waters, the muskallonge,s strikes the
spoon and the battle for life begins. In
addition to services as a guide, he OBJ,
talred from Fergy a wealth Of romance OF
the forest and field, for this boatman is
certainly the most gifted and ornate lia1
to be found between Green Bay and the
Mississippi river. When pike, pickerel,
bass and "musky' refuse to strike, it is
worth the money to hear him, in r2odulat-
ed voice, droEe on of the way in which
they have bitten in the past, and doubt
less will bite again. His language IS sim
pie and direct unadorned with the graces
Of rhetoric, unmarried by the crimpings Of
grammar, the unfettered, free, expressive
tongue of the wilderness, the birch bark
shack and the logging camp.
'Talking about fishirg," said Fergy, the
other man not having spoken for half ali
hour. talking about fishing and the fun
ny things a man sees sometimes when his
eyes amt shut. reminds me of q time
when I got tired of loafng round Boyd's
hotel and wanted to do a do on my own
reel. I go down to Long lake and dump
myself into a piroog, and go across and
pike along into the woods. I pike for 500
yards, straight as a teal flies when it
means business, and run bang against a
little lake I had never seen before in my
life 1t lay there among the trees and the
alder bushes like looking glass, not
more'n an acre, and I wanter say 1T was
broke from end to end with ripples made
by the small-nlouthed bass
'"They was two million Of em, or maybe.
they was three Million an it was pretty
enough to make man keep away from
whisky and the gals forever and ever
amen. I dug nay hands into my pockets,
and I didn't have no more bait than
would catch starving minnow in a wash
bowl I thought hard for three and
quarter minutes. and tt Ell 7 out with the
tail of my red flannel shirt and tore off a
hunk big enough to wrap penknife in.
didn't need that much, but I wanted fish,
and the other guides had plenty of shirts
ard we all bunked in the same cabin.
Now, q little riace of red flannel amt the
most ca tful thing in the world, but say,
them fish was crazy for it. 1t hadn'
touched the water when twentythree OF
'em made dash for 1t, and one of 'em
that weighed four and a quarter pounds,
got it right in the left gill. Then begin
the dadbingedest hurroosh what ever.
"The line was in the air most OF the
time going in or coming out, and many
time a fish would meet the flannel two
and a half feet above the water. I'd reef
it into him the second he struck: he'd be
hooked by the time his tail touched the
lake. and jerked that old quadruple null
tiplying so fast that he'd come in standing
on his flulzes, with maybe his hind fin
just tipping the water now ana again. l
never see such fish. Nobody Fever did.
1T catched sixty-one red-eyed bass in
sixty minutes fiat. Then my right arm
was so tired that I had to lift on the
string with my left hand, and paddle home
with that hand, too. I amt certain but
what they was sixty-two, but Antoine
Garasbay come down to the boat to meet
me at the hotel 1ading, and he was the
worst fish-thief that ever made a track
big enough for two fair-sized men. He
was drowned last year, logging on the
Flsmbeau, and I amt much doubt. that
some meat was on his bores made by one
Of them red-eyes. That catch weighed
15o pounds II ounces, and they want a
mouth in the bunch" -
Fergy had never read Dean Swift and
Is unaware of the great doctors habit OF
embellishing his yarns by the use OF
minutae, measuring a wash bowl of the
Brobdingnagians by the dome of St.
Pauls and so forth; but he has the genius
for detail that marks the accomplished
preva1icator, and backs his statements
with such wealth of little things that the
listener is forced into mute acquiescence
If rot into outspoken belief.
1.-The meanest guide I ever bumped
agin," he went on, twas Aleck Hume. He
was a Scotchman, with French blood ir
him and a dash of Leech Lake Indian.
don't know where you'd go to find a
meaner cross than that. 1t was his grand
mother on the mothers side that give hin
the Indian tinge, and he got the French
from his fathers grandmother. He
smoked my tobacker and broke my pipe
and told the guests at the hotel that
wn't no good One day on Pickerel lake
me an my man was out Of bait. an Alecl
an his man was down the shore 2UO yards
from us. Aleck had the big bucket hal
full of frogs, sitting behind him, and tn
man was In the stern. can outsWl!n an.
fish that ever jumped nly-pad to reach
June bug, when try, and I said NOTHING
to my man. I just went over the SID
without a splash and slipped under tn
water. The distance was 1875 yards. an
there was big ruffle On from the wind
got a good start about eight feet under
and came up just behind Aleck, as tru
as q hair. Say, you couldn't hear a rip
pie. I put my hand over the gunWale
lifted the frog bucket, went under again
and the next thing I saw, was on tn
far side of my own boat, holding up tn
frogs for my man to see. Say, though
he'd scll off the seat.
.Comins back was a little harder tina
going. 7 was afraid to take too deep