The Adventures of a Modest Man

by Robert W. Chambers

  CHAPTER XIII

  A CHANCE ACQUAINTANCE

  Well, then, the way that Ellis and Jones met each other--and severalother things--was this. It chanced to be in the northern forests, Ibelieve--both were fishing, neither knew the other nor was even aware oftheir mutual proximity.

  Then the wind changed abruptly, blowing now from the south; and with thechange of wind Ellis fancied that he smelled green wood burning. A fewminutes later he was sure of it; he stood knee-deep in the streamsniffing uneasily, then he lifted his trout-rod, reeled in his line, andwaded silently shoreward, his keen nose twitching.

  Ah! There it was--that misty bluish bloom belting a clump of hemlocks.And the acrid odor grew, impregnating the filtered forest air. Helistened, restless eyes searching. The noise of the stream filled hisears; he tightened the straps of his pack, shortened his trout rod,leaving line and cast on, and crawled up the ravine, shoulder-deep infragrant undergrowth, until the dull clash of flashing spray and thetumult of the falls were almost lost in the leafy depths behind.

  Ranker, stronger, came the pungent odor of smoke; halting to listen heheard the hissing whisper of green wood afire; then, crawling up over anenormous boulder, he saw, just beyond and below, a man in tweeds,squatting on his haunches, and attempting to toss a flapjack over abadly constructed camp-fire.

  The two young men caught sight of one another at the same instant;alert, mistrustful, each stared at the other in questioning silencewhile the first instinct of unpleasant surprise lasted.

  "How are you?" said the man, cautiously.

  "Good-morning," replied Ellis. "When the wind turned I scented your firedown the stream. Thought I'd see what was burning."

  "Are you up here fishing?" inquired he of the tweeds.

  "Yes; came here by canoe to the forks below. I am out for a week bymyself. The Caranay water is my old-time trail.... Looks like a storm,doesn't it?"

  "Anything doing with the trout?"

  "Not much; two in the falls pool that come an ounce short of the pound.I should be glad to divide--if you are shy on trout."

  Again they regarded one another carefully.

  "My name," said the man by the fire, "is Jones--but that can't be helpednow. So if you'll overlook such matters I'll be glad of a trout if youcan spare one."

  "My name is Ellis; help yourself."

  The man by the fire glanced at the burnt flapjack, scraped it free fromthe pan, tossed it into the bushes, and straightened to his full height.

  "Come into camp, Mr. Ellis," he said, politely. The freemasonry of casteoperates very quickly in the wilderness; Ellis slid down the boulder onthe re-enforced seat of his knickerbockers, landing, with hob-nailedshoes foremost, almost at the edge of the fire. Then he laid his rodaside, slipped the pack to the ground, unslung his creel, and, fishingout a handkerchief, mopped his sunburnt countenance.

  "Anything else you're short of, Mr. Jones?" he asked, pleasantly. "I'mjust in from the settlements, and I can let you have a pinch of almostanything."

  "Have you plenty of salt?" inquired Jones, wistfully.

  "Plenty; isn't there anything else? Bacon? Sugar?"

  "Matches?"

  Ellis looked at him keenly; good woodsmen don't run short of matches;good woodsmen don't build such fires.

  "Certainly," he said. "Did you have an accident?"

  "No--that is, several boxes got wet, and I've been obliged to sit aroundthis confounded fire for fear it might go out--didn't dare fish very farfrom it."

  He looked gloomily around, rubbed his forehead as though trying torecollect something, and finally sat down on a log.

  "Fact is," he said, "I don't know very much about the woods. Do you?Everything's gone wrong; I tore my canoe in the Ledge Rapids yesterday.I'm in a fix."

  Ellis laughed; and his laugh was so pleasant, so entirely withoutoffence, that young Jones laughed, too, for a while, then checkedhimself to adjust his eyeglasses, which his mirth had displaced.

  "Can you cook?" he asked, so seriously that Ellis only nodded, stilllaughing.

  "Then, for Heaven's love, would you, when you cook your own breakfastover that fire, cook enough for two?"

  "Why, man, I believe you're hungry," said Ellis, sharply.

  "Hungry? Well, I don't know whether you would call it exactly hunger,because I have eaten several things which I cooked. I ought not to behungry; I tried to toss a flapjack, but it got stuck to the pan. Factis, I'm a rotten cook, and I guess it's simply that I'm half starved fora decent meal."

  "Why, see here," said Ellis, rising to his feet, "I can fix up somethingpretty quick if you like."

  "I _do_ like. Yonder is my cornmeal, coffee, some damp sugar, flour, andwhat's left of the pork. You see I left it in a corner of the lean-to,and while I was asleep a porcupine got busy with it; then I hung it on atree, and some more porcupines invited their relatives, and they allclimbed up and nearly finished it. Did you suppose that a porcupinecould climb a tree?"

  "I've heard so," said Ellis, gravely, busy with the stores which he wasunrolling from his own blanket. The guilelessness of this stray brotherappalled him. Here was a babe in the woods. A new sort of babe, too,for, in the experience of Ellis, the incompetent woodsman is ever theloudest-mouthed, the tyro, the most conceited. But this forest-squattinginnocent not only knew nothing of the elements of woodcraft, but hadcalled a stranger's attention to his ignorance with a simplicity thatsilenced mirth, forestalled contempt, and aroused a curious respect forthe unfortunate.

  "He is no liar, anyway," thought Ellis, placing a back-log, mending thefire, emptying the coffee pot, and settling the kettle to boil. Andwhile he went about culinary matters with a method born of habit, Joneswatched him, aided when he saw a chance; and they chatted on mostanimatedly together as the preparations for breakfast advanced.

  "The very first day I arrived in the woods," said Jones, "I fell intothe stream and got most of my matches wet. I've had a devil of a timesince."

  "It's a good idea to keep reserve matches in a water-tight glassbottle," observed Ellis, carelessly, and without appearing to instructanybody about anything.

  "I'll remember that. What is a good way to keep pork from porcupines?"

  Ellis mentioned several popular methods, stirred the batter, shoved ahot plate nearer the ashes, and presently began the manufacture offlapjacks.

  "Don't you toss 'em?" inquired Jones, watching the process intently.

  "Oh, they can be tossed--like this! But it is easier for me to turn themwith a knife--like this. I have an idea that they toss flapjacks lessoften in the woods than they do in fiction."

  "I gathered my idea from a book," said Jones, bitterly; "it told how tobuild a fire without matches. Some day I shall destroy the author."

  Presently Jones remarked in a low, intense voice: "Oh, the fragrance ofthat coffee and bacon!" which was all he said, but its significance waspathetically unmistakable.

  "Pitch in, man," urged Ellis, looking back over his shoulder. "I'll bewith you in a second." But when his tower of browned and smokingflapjacks was ready, and he came over to the log, he found that hishost, being his host, had waited. That settled his convictionsconcerning Jones; and that was doubtless why, inside of half an hour, hefound himself calling him Jones and not Mr. Jones, and Jones calling himEllis. They were a pair of well knit, clean-limbed young men, throat andface burnt deeply by wind and sun. Jones did not have much hair; Ellis'swas thick and short, and wavy at the temples. They were agreeable tolook at.

  "Have another batch of flapjacks?" inquired Ellis, persuasively.

  Jones groaned with satisfaction at the prospect, and applied himself toa crisp trout garnished with bacon.

  "I've tried and tried," he said, "but I cannot catch any trout. When Ifound that I could not I was horrified, Ellis, because, you see, I hadsupposed that the forest and stream were going to furnish me withsubsistence. Nature hasn't done a thing to me since I've tried to shakehands with her."

  "I wonder," said Ellis, "why you came into the woods al
one?"

  Jones coyly pounced upon another flapjack, folded it neatly and insertedone end of it into his mouth. This he chewed reflectively; and when ithad vanished according to Fletcher, he said:

  "If I tell you why I came here I'll begin to get angry. This breakfastis too heavenly to spoil. Pass the bacon and help yourself."

  Ellis, however, had already satisfied his hunger. He set the kettle onthe coals again, dumped into it cup and plate and fork, wiped hissheath-knife carefully, and, curling up at the foot of a hemlock,lighted his pipe, returning the flaming branch to the back-log.

  Jones munched on; smile after smile spread placidly over his youthfulface, dislodging his eyeglasses every time. He resumed them, and ateflapjacks.

  "The first time my canoe upset," he said, "I lost my book of artificialflies. I brought a box of angle-worms with me, too, but they fell intothe stream the second time I upset. So I have been trying to snare oneof those big trout under the ledge below----"

  Ellis's horrified glance cut him short; he shrugged his shoulders.

  "My friend, I know it's dead low-down, but it was a matter of purehunger with me. At all events, it's just as well that I caught nothing;I couldn't have cooked it if I had."

  He sighed at the last flapjack, decided he did not require it, andsettling down with his back against the log blissfully lighted his pipe.

  For ten minutes they smoked without speaking, dreamily gazing at theblue sky through the trees. Friendly little forest birds came around,dropping from twig to branch; two chipmunks crept into the case of eggsto fill their pouched chops with the oats that the eggs were packed in.The young men watched them lazily.

  "The simpler life is the true existence," commented Ellis, drawing along, deep breath.

  "What the devil is the simpler life?" demanded Jones, with so muchenergy that the chipmunks raced away in mad abandon, and the flock ofblack-capped birds scattered to neigbouring branches, remarking inunison, "_Chick-a-dee-dee-dee_."

  "Why, you're leading the simpler life now," said Ellis, laughing, "areyou not?"

  "Am I? No, I'm not. I'm not leading a simple life; I'm leading apace-killing, nerve-racking, complex one. I tell you, Ellis, that it hastaken just one week in the woods to reveal to me the complexity ofsimplicity!"

  "Oh, you don't like the life?"

  "I like it all right, but it's too complex. Listen to me. You asked mewhy anybody ever let me escape into the woods. I'll tell you.... You'rea New Yorker, are you not?"

  Ellis nodded.

  "All right. First look on this picture: I live in the Sixties, nearenough to the Park to see it. It's green, and I like it. Besides, thereare geraniums and other posies in my back yard, and I can see them whenthe laundress isn't too busy with the clothes-line. So much for the_mise en scene_; me in a twenty-by-one-hundred house, perfectlycontented; Park a stone's toss west, back yard a few feet north. Myhabits? Simple enough to draw tears from a lambkin! I breakfast atnine--an egg, fruit, coffee and--I hate to admit it--the _Sun_. Ateleven I go down-town to see if there's anything doing. There never is,so I smoke one cigar with my partner and then we lunch together. I thenwalk uptown--_walk_, mind you. At the club I look at the ticker, or outof the window. Later I play cowboy or billiards for an hour. I take onecocktail--_one_, if you please. I converse." He waved his pipe; Ellisnodded solemnly.

  "Then," continued Jones, "what do I do?"

  "I don't know," replied Ellis.

  "I'll tell you. I call a cab--one taxi, or one hansom, as the state ofthe weather may suggest--I drive through the Park, pleasantly aware ofthe verdure, the squirrels, and the babies; I arrive at my home; I mountto the library and there I select from my limited collection someaccursed book I've always heard of but have never read--not fiction, butsomething stupefying and worth while. This I read for exactly one hour.I then need a drink. I then dress; and if I'm dining out, out I go--ifnot, I dine at home. Twice a week I attend the theatre, but I neutralisethat by doing penance at the opera every Monday during the season....There, Ellis, is the story of a simple life! Look on _that_ picture. Nowlook on _this_: Me in the backwoods, fly-bitten, smoke-choked, ahalf-charred flapjack in my fist, a porcupine-gnawed rind of pork on astick, attempting to broil the same at a fire, the smoke of which blindsme. Me, again, belly down, peering hungrily over the bank of a stream,attempting to snatch a trout with a bare hook, my glasses slipping offrepeatedly, the spectre of starvation scourging on me. Me, once more,frantic with indigestion and mosquitoes, lurking under a blanket, theroot of a tree bruising my backbone; me in the morning, done up, shavingin icy water and cutting my chin; me, half shaved, searching for a scrapof nourishment, gauntly prowling among cold and greasy fry-pans! Ellis!_Which_ is the simpler life, in Heaven's name?"

  Ellis's laughter was the laughter of a woodsman, full, infectious, butalmost noiseless. The birds came back and teetered on adjacent twigs,cheeping in friendly unison; a chipmunk, chops distended, popped up fromthe case of eggs like a striped jack-in-a-box, not at all afraid of aman who laughed that way.

  "_How_ did you ever come into the woods?" he asked at length.

  "Lunatic friends and fool books persuaded me I was missing something. Iread all about how to tell a woodcock from a peacock; how to dig holesin the ground and raise little pea vines, and how to make two blades ofgrass grow where the laundress had set a devastating shoe. Then I tiredof it. But friends urged me on, and one idiot said that I looked likethe victim of a rare disease and gave me a shotgun--whether to shootmyself or the dicky birds I'm not perfectly certain yet. Besides, as Ihave a perfect hatred of taking life, I had no temptation to shootguides in Maine or niggers in South Carolina, where the quail come from.Still, I was awake to the new idea. I read more books on bats andwoodchucks; I smelled every flower I saw; I tried to keep up," he said,earnestly; "by Heaven, I did my best! And now, look at me! Nature handsme the frozen mitt!"

  Ellis could only laugh, cradling his knees in his clasped and sun-tannedhands.

  "I am fond of Nature; I admire the geraniums in my backyard," continuedJones, excitedly. "I like a simple life, too; but I don't wish to pursuea live thing and eat it for my dinner. The idea is perfectly obnoxiousto me. I like flowers on a table or in the Park, but I don't want toknow their names, or the names of the creatures that buzz and crawl overthem, or the names of the birds that feed on the buzzy things! I don't;I know I don't, and I won't! Nature has strung me; I shall knock Naturehereafter. This is all for mine. I'll lock up and leave the key of thefields to the next Come-on lured into the good green goods by that mostaccomplished steerer, Mrs. Nature. I've got my gilt brick, Ellis--I'mgoing home to buy a card to hang over my desk; and on it will be thewisest words ever written:

  "'Who's Loony Now?'"

  "But, my dear fellow----"

  "No, you don't. You're an accomplice of this Nature dame; I can tell bythe way you cook and catch trout and keep your matches in bottles. Onelarge and brilliant brick is enough for one New York man. The asphaltfor mine--and a Turkish bath."

  After a grinning silence, Ellis arose, stretched, tapped his pipeagainst a tree trunk, and sauntered over to where his rod lay. "Come on;I'll guarantee you a trout in the first reach," he said, affably,slipping ferrule into socket, disentangling the cast and setting theline free.

  So they strolled off toward the long amber reach which lay a few yardsbelow the camp, Jones explaining that he didn't wish to take life fromanything except a mosquito.

  "We've got to eat; we'd better stock up while we can, because it's goingto rain," observed Ellis.

  "Going to rain? How do you know?"

  "I smell it. Besides, look there--yonder above the mountains. Do you seethe sky behind the Golden Dome?"