tance Bob could but just make it
out. The man leaned carelessly on his peavy. Across the vista he
floated, graceful and motionless, on his way from the driving camp to
the mill.

Bob gave a whistle of admiration, and walked on.

"I wish some of our oarsmen could see that," he said to himself.
"They're always guying the fellows that tip over their cranky little
shells."

He stopped short.

"I couldn't do it," he cried aloud; "nor I couldn't learn to do it. I
sure _am_ a dub!"

He trudged on, his spirits again at the ebb. The brightness of the day
had dimmed. Indeed, physically, a change had taken place. Over the sun
banked clouds had drawn. With the disappearance of the sunlight a
little breeze, before but a pleasant and wandering companion to the
birds, became cold and draughty. The leaf carpet proved to be soggy; and
as for the birds themselves, their whistles suddenly grew plaintive as
though with the portent of late autumn.

This sudden transformation, usual enough with every passing cloud in the
childhood of the spring, reacted still further on Bob's spirits. He
trudged doggedly on. After a time a gleam of water caught his attention
to the left. He deserted the River Trail, descended a slope, pushed his
way through a thicket of tamaracks growing out from wire grass and
puddles, and found himself on the shores of a round lake.

It was a small body of water, completely surrounded by tall, dead brown
grasses. These were in turn fringed by melancholy tamaracks. The water
was dark slate colour, and ruffled angrily by the breeze which here in
the open developed some slight strength. It reminded Bob of a
"bottomless" lake pointed out many years before to his childish
credulity. A lonesome hell diver flipped down out of sight as Bob
appeared.

The wet ground swayed and bent alarmingly under his tread. A stub
attracted him. He perched on the end of it, his feet suspended above the
wet, and abandoned himself to reflection. The lonesome diver reappeared.
The breeze rustled the dead grasses and the tamaracks until they seemed
to be shivering in the cold.

Bob was facing himself squarely. This was his first grapple with the
world outside. To his direct American mind the problem was simplicity in
the extreme. An idler is a contemptible being. A rich idler is almost
beneath contempt. A man's life lies in activity. Activity, outside the
artistic and professional, means the world of business. All teaching at
home and th