LITMIR.BIZ

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that camp over there isn’t much of a camp,” replied the guide. “The fact is, it is only the tail end of a camp, and I don’t suppose Peter Sadler thought anybody would be likely to take it just now, and so didn’t think it worth while to speak of it. Of course it’s jammed up against this one, as you say; but then the people in one camp haven’t the right to cross the line into another camp if the people in the other camp don’t want them to.”

      “Line!” said Mr. Archibald. “It is absurd to think of lines in a place like this. And I have no intention of making myself disagreeable by ordering people off my premises. But I would like to know if there is another camp three hundred feet on this side of our cabin, or three hundred feet back of it.”

      “No, sir,” said Matlack, speaking promptly; “there isn’t another camp between this and the lower end of the lake. There’s a big one there, and it’s taken; but the people aren’t coming until next month.”

      “If a larger party had taken Camp Roy,” said Mr. Archibald to his wife a little later, “I should not mind it so much. But two young men! I do not like it.”

      CHAPTER VII

      A STRANGER

      It was at the close of a pleasant afternoon four days after the arrival of the young men at Camp Roy, and Mrs. Archibald was seated on a camp-stool near the edge of the lake intently fishing. By her side stood Phil Matlack, who had volunteered to interpose himself between her and all the disagreeable adjuncts of angling. He put the bait upon her hook, he told her when her cork was bobbing sufficiently to justify a jerk, and when she caught a little fish he took it off the hook. Fishing in this pleasant wise had become very agreeable to the good lady, and she found pleasures in camp life which she had not anticipated. Her husband was in a boat some distance out on the lake, and he was also fishing, but she did not care for that style of sport; the fish were too big and the boat too small.

      A little farther down the lake Martin Sanders sat busily engaged in putting some water-fowl into the foreground of Margery’s sketch. A critical observer might have noticed that he had also made a number of changes in said sketch, all of which added greatly to its merits as a picture of woodland scenery. At a little distance Margery was sitting at her easel making a sketch of Martin as an artist at work in the woods. The two young men had gone off with their guns, not perhaps because they expected to find any legitimate game at that season, but hoping to secure some ornithological specimens, or to get a shot at some minor quadrupeds unprotected by law. Another reason for their expedition could probably have been found in some strong hints given by Mr. Archibald that it was unwise for them to be hanging around the camps and taking no advantage of the opportunities for sport offered by the beautiful weather and the forest.

      It was not long before Margery became convinced that the sketch on which she was working did not resemble her model, nor did it very much resemble an artist at work in the woods.

      “It looks a good deal more like a cobbler mending shoes,” she said to herself, “and I’ll keep it for that. Some day I will put a bench under him and a shoe in his hand instead of a sketch.” With that she rose, and went to see how Martin was getting on. “I think,” she said, “those dark ducks improve the picture very much. They throw the other things back.” Then she stopped, went to one side, and gazed out over the lake. “I wonder,” she said, “if there is really any fun in fishing. Uncle Archibald has been out in that boat for more than two hours, and he has fished almost every day since he’s been here. I should think he would get tired of it.”

      “Oh no,” said Martin, looking up with animation. “If you know how to fish, and there is good sport, you never get tired of it.”

      “I know how to fish,” said Margery, “and I do not care about it at all.”

      “You know how to fish?” said Martin. “Can you make a cast with a fly?”

      “I never tried that,” said she. “But I have fished as Aunt Harriet does, and it is easy as can be.”

      “Oh,” said he, “you don’t know anything about fishing unless you have fished with a fly. That is the only real sport. It is as exciting as a battle. If you would let me teach you how to throw a fly, I am sure you would never find fishing tiresome, and these woods would be like a new world to you.”

      “Why don’t you do it yourself, then?” she asked.

      “Because I am paid to do other things,” he replied. “We are not sent here simply to enjoy ourselves, though I must say that I – ” And then he suddenly stopped. “I wish you would let me teach you fly-fishing. I know you would like it.”

      Margery looked at the eager face turned towards her, and then she gazed out over the water.

      “Perhaps I might like it,” she said. “But it wouldn’t be necessary for you to take that trouble. Uncle Archibald has two or three times asked me to go out with him, and of course he would teach me how to fish as he does. Isn’t that somebody calling you?”

      “Yes,” said Martin, rising; “it’s Phil. I suppose it’s nearly supper-time.”

      As they walked towards the camp, Margery in front, and Martin behind her carrying the drawing-materials and the easel, Margery suddenly turned.

      “It was very good of you to offer to teach me to fish with flies,” she said, “and perhaps, if Uncle Archibald doesn’t want to be bothered, I may get you to show me how to do it.”

      The young man’s face brightened, and he was about to express his pleasure with considerable warmth; but he checked himself, and merely remarked that whenever she was ready he would provide a rod and flies and show her how to use them.

      Mrs. Archibald had gone into the cabin, and Margery went up to Matlack, who was on his way to the little tent in which the camp cooking was done.

      “Did Mrs. Archibald tell you,” said she, “that we have invited Mr. Clyde and Mr. Raybold to supper to-night?”

      The guide stopped and smiled. “She told me,” said he, “but I don’t know that it was altogether necessary.”

      “I suppose you mean,” said Margery, “that they are here so much; but I don’t wonder; they must do awfully poor cooking for themselves. I don’t suppose they will bring anything back that is good to eat.”

      “Not at this time of year,” said he, “but I shall be satisfied if they bring themselves home.”

      “What do you mean by that?” asked Margery, quickly.

      “Well,” said Matlack, “I don’t doubt the bicycle fellow will always come back all right, but I’m afeard about the other one. That bicycle chap don’t know no more about a gun than he does about makin’ bread, and I wouldn’t go out huntin’ with him for a hundred dollars. He’s just as likely to take a crack at his pardner’s head as at anything else that’s movin’ in the woods.”

      “That is dreadful!” exclaimed Margery.

      “Yes, it is,” returned the guide; “and if I had charge of their camp he wouldn’t go out with a gun again. But it will be all right in a day or two. Peter will settle that.”

      “Mr. Sadler, do you mean?” asked Margery. “What’s he got to do with it?”

      “He’s got everything to do with it,” said Matlack. “He’s got everything to do with everything in this part of the country. He’s got his laws, and he sees to it that people stand by them. One of his rules is that people who don’t know how to use guns sha’n’t shoot in his camps.”

      “But how can he know about the people out here in the woods?” asked Margery.

      “I tell you, miss,” said Matlack, speaking slowly and decisively, “Peter Sadler’s ways of knowing things is like gas – the kind you burn, I mean. I was a-visitin’ once in a city house, and slept in a room on the top floor, and there was a leak in the pipe in the cellar, and that gas just went over the whole house, into every room and closet, and even under the beds, and I’ve often thought that that was just like Peter’s way of doin’ things and

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