, "lifting
rocks weren't no work for a man with one leg." So he had offset
against it getting the meals ready, and what he called "tidying things
up." But as Karlek was, unrewarded, to bring the bread, Ike's
household labours did not promise to be onerous.

In one sense the entente campaign proved victorious, for they had a
goodly catch; but in the division of the spoils it apparently turned
out that it had been so arranged that Emile's share was to catch the
fish, Karlek's to dry it, and Ike's to exchange it piecemeal for
tobacco or "things for t' house," as he called them.

Ever since Stevenson wrote of the one-legged rascal Silver, one
associates with that handicap a tendency to try to outwit others;
while the dependence of blind men presupposes simplicity and
trustfulness.

Emile worked like a tiger, with the single-mindedness of the Verdun
spirit of France, blissfully supposing that Ike did the same in his
end of the boat. Fishing in sixty fathoms of icy water, Emile would
haul his lines up and down, re-bait and tend them, till his hands were
blue with cold, and the skin "fair wore off t' bones." One day,
however, a harbour trap boat happened to pass close by their rodney
while they were anchored on the fishing-grounds, and the owner called
out, "Wake up, Ike! Price of dream fish is down." Ike had somewhat
loudly and not too politely responded to the salutation, but all the
same it awoke a first suspicion in Emile's mind. While not slacking
himself, he "kept an eye" on his partner as best he could.

He knew that a one-legged man must sit down for work, while for his
part he stood, but he had not realized that Ike considered any more
restful posture essential. "A blind man sees more'n most folk" is a
common claim of Emile's. It is tedious pegging away when fish are
scarce, yet fishing is a trade where "'tis dogged as does it." He
suspected that Ike took it easy in the stern while he worked in the
bow; and his doubts were confirmed when one day, from a passing boat,
some one called out: "'Tain't safe for you to be out alone, Emile.
You'll be running some one down one of these days." It was obvious
that Ike was not visible over the gunwale.

From that day on, Emile began to count his catch and to put a
cross-thwait in the middle of the boat to keep them separate--"Something
to push my feet against when I rows, I called 'un," he told me. Still
Ike was almost too much for him, for Karlek remembered seeing him
sor