te, like mortar-lines of some Titanic
masonry. They gave chase to a tug puffing northward half a mile to the
right, towing two or three canal-boats through the still water and the
stiller night. Then a sail came ghostily out of the shadow astern, and
stole on them as they drew away and waited for it. By and by the boat
crept up, dropped away a little from the light wind, and passed close
to leeward. There was one man in her sitting in the stern, and the
whole made hardly a sound. They knew the man at the tiller: it was the
long fellow again. He took them in, and they talked as they drifted
on. The lights behind the locusts fell far astern.

"Come, come!" said Colman at last: "this won't do. We have a long pull
now, and we're to be off at two in the morning."

Field turned and asked the young fellow if he was engaged for a week
or two. No, not especially: he had been running parties a good deal
off and on, but they were getting pretty thin now, and there was not
much call for boats.

"Will you go with me on a gunning and fishing cruise through the
lakes?" asked Field; and the long fellow said he'd go with him
as soon as any other man, and when should they start? "To-morrow
morning," answered Field, "any time you like."

They got into the skiff, threw off the line, and pulled back to the
Fort House; that is, Field pulled and Colman lay in the stern and
listened to the water gurgling under the boat. They landed and climbed
up the rocks.

"So you're going back?" said Colman. "Dan, I wish you'd come home."

Field flushed and turned sharply. "Oh, hang your preaching, Phil!"
he snapped out. "You're too infernally flat. Who said anything about
going back?"

The steamer was due in three or four hours. They went straight to
bed, and it seemed about ten minutes afterward when Colman woke with
a start and saw Field striking a light: it was twenty minutes of two.
They waited an hour for the boat, walking about or sitting by the
fire. Then the landlord came in with a lantern and said the boat was
coming, and they went down to the wharf and waited for her. The bell
rang, the wheels ploughed in, the friends bade each other good-night,
gave a hearty grip of the hand, and then there was one left alone.
Field went back to bed. In the morning he made himself a rough outfit
of clothes and boots, and started on foot with his guide. He did not
know the guide's name, and called him "Long" to begin with, and the
guide answered as if th