nquired Coristine, "on our knapsacks?" to which his
companion answered, "No, on the excellent steamer _Emily May_."

There was no excellent steamer _Emily May_; there had not been for a
long time; it was a memory of the past. The railway had ruined
navigation. What was to be done? It would never do to retrace their
steps over the railroad ties, and the roads about Belle Ewart led
nowhere, while to track it along the hot lake shore was not to be
thought of. Wilkinson's plans had broken down; so Coristine left him at
the village hostelry, and sallied forth on exploration bent. In the
course of his wanderings he came to a lumber wharf, alongside which lay
an ancient schooner.

"Schooner ahoy!" he shouted, when a shock-headed man of uncertain middle
age poked his head up through a hatchway, and answered: "Ahoy yourself,
and see how you like it." This was discouraging, but not to a limb of
the law. Coristine half removed his wide awake, and said: "I have the
pleasure of addressing the captain of the ship _Susan Thomas_," the name
he had seen painted in gold letters on the stern.

"Not adzackly," replied the shock headed mariner, much mollified; "he's
my mate, and he'll be along as soon as he's made up his bundle. I'm
waitin' for him to sail this yere schooner."

"Where is the _Susan Thomas_ bound for?"

"For Kempenfeldt Bay, leastways Barrie."

"Could you take a couple of passengers, willing to pay properly for
their passage?"

"Dassent; it's agin the law; not but what I'd like to have yer, fer its
lonesome, times. Here comes the old man hisself; try him."

A stout grizzled man of between fifty and sixty came walking along the
wharf, with his bundle over his shoulder, and Coristine tried him. The
Captain was a man of few words, so, when the situation was explained, he
remarked: "Law don't allow freight boats to take money off passengers,
but law don't say how many hands I have to have, nor what I'm to pay 'em
or not to pay 'em. If you and your friend want to ship for the trip to
Barrie, you'd better hurry up, for we're going to start right away."

Coristine was filled with the wildest enthusiasm. He dashed back to the
hotel, the bar of which was covered with maps and old guide-books,
partly the property of Wilkinson, partly of mine host, who was lazily
helping him to lay out a route. "Hurry, hurry!" cried the excited
lawyer, as he swept the maps into his friend's open knapsack. Then he
yelled "hurroo!" and sang:--