ed. But Carl was not lonely. He
forgot all about Gertie as he cached his skees by the shore and
prowled through the woods, leaping on brush-piles and shooting quickly
when a rabbit ran out.

When he had bagged three rabbits he was besieged by the melancholy of
loneliness, the perfection of the silver-gowned Gertie. He wanted to
talk. He thought of Bone Stillman.

It was very likely that Bone was, as usual in winter, up beyond Big
Bend, fishing for pickerel with tip-ups. A never-stopping dot in the
dusk, Carl headed for Big Bend, three miles away.

The tip-up fisher watches a dozen tip-ups--short, automatic
fishing-rods, with lines running through the ice, the pivoted arm
signaling the presence of a fish at the bait. Sometimes, for warmth,
he has a tiny shanty, perhaps five feet by six in ground area, heated
by a powder-can stove. Bone Stillman often spent the night in his
movable shanty on the lake, which added to his reputation as village
eccentric. But he was more popular, now, with the local sporting
gentlemen, who found that he played a divine game of poker.

"Hello, son!" he greeted Carl. "Come in. Leave them long legs of yours
up on shore if there ain't room."

"Say, Bone, do you think a fellow ever ought to join a church?"

"Depends. Why?"

"Well, suppose he was going to be a lawyer and go in for politics?"

"Look here. What 're you thinking of becoming a lawyer for?"

"Didn't say I was."

"Of course you're thinking of it. Look here. Don't you know you've got a
chance of seeing the world? You're one of the lucky people that can have a
touch of the wanderlust without being made useless by it--as I have. You
may, you _may_ wander in thought as well as on freight-trains, and discover
something for the world. Whereas a lawyer----They're priests. They decide
what's holy and punish you if you don't guess right. They set up codes that
it takes lawyers to interpret, and so they perpetuate themselves. I don't
mean to say you're extraordinary in having a chance to wander. Don't get
the big-head over it. You're a pretty average young American. There's
plenty of the same kind. Only, mostly they get tied up to something before
they see what a big world there is to hike in, and I want to keep you from
that. I'm not roasting lawyers----Yes, I am, too. They live in calf-bound
books. Son, son, for God's sake live in life."

"Yes, but look here, Bone; I was just thinking about it, that's all.
You're always drumming it