er?"

"Mr. Cooke," said McCann, disdainfully, as he got into his boat, "he
wasn't nothing but a prospector doing the lake for one of them summer
hotel companies."

CHAPTER XIX

When the biography of the Celebrity is written, and I have no doubt
it will be some day, may his biographer kindly draw a veil over that
instant in his life when he was tenderly and obsequiously raised by Mr.
Cooke from the trap in the floor of the Maria's cabin.

It is sometimes the case that a good fright will heal a feud. And
whereas, before the arrival of the H. Sinclair, there had been much
dissension and many quarrels concerning the disposal of the quasi
Charles Wrexell Allen, when the tug steamed away to the southwards but
one opinion remained,--that, like Jonah, he must be got rid of. And
no one concurred more heartily in this than the Celebrity himself. He
strolled about and smoked apathetically, with the manner of one who was
bored beyond description, whilst the discussion was going on between
Farrar, Mr. Cooke, and myself as to the best place to land him. When
considerately asked by my client whether he had any choice in the
matter, he replied, somewhat facetiously, that he could not think of
making a suggestion to one who had shown such superlative skill in its
previous management.

Mr. Trevor, too, experienced a change of sentiment in Mr. Cooke's favor.
It is not too much to say that the senator's scare had been of such
thoroughness that he was willing to agree to almost anything. He had
come so near to being relieved of that most precious possession, his
respectability, that the reason in Mr. Cooke's course now appealed to
him very strongly. Thus he became a tacit assenter in wrong-doing,
for circumstances thrust this, once in a while, upon the best of our
citizens.

The afternoon wore cool; nay, cold is a better word. The wind brought
with it a suggestion of the pine-clad wastes of the northwestern
wilderness whence it came, and that sure harbinger of autumn, the
blue haze, settled around the hills, and benumbed the rays of the sun
lingering over the crests. Farrar and I, as navigators, were glad to get
into our overcoats, while the others assembled in the little cabin and
lighted the gasoline stove which stood in the corner. Outside we had our
pipes for consolation, and the sunset beauty of the lake.

By six we were well over the line, and consulting our chart, we selected
a cove behind a headland on our left, which