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DOGS FISHING DEBUT Family Physicians Quest After Health and Happiness HappinessHe He niiil Ills Patients Find lloth llothin in the Pool of ofParadise Paradise On the night of tlie twelfth of July or there ¬ abouts that Is to say as it were so to speak about a fortnight in advance of the date which is known in history as the twentyseventh of July I awoke from a deep sleep Regularly thereafter I found myself similarly discomfited the period of sleeplessness being prolonged each succeeding night nightMy My wife who is fairly well acquainted with me decided to call in the old family physician for a consultation Doe as he will hereafter be called was more than a mere 51 D lie was a friend For sixteen years he had slaved without a vacation vacationImagine Imagine my surprise when one evening I saw Doc looming at the entrance to my library into which lie was escorted by my wife Upon her face which is usually calm there was an expression of deep concern while Doc assuming his finest professional air seemed to be waiting for the gong gongWhen When I was a child doctors wore frock coats string ties plug hats interchangeable cuffs and benevolent whiskers During my youth the crisp brown beard came into the medical profession along with a sprightly step fourinhand ties soft cuffs and monthly statements Very well wellNevertheless Nevertheless there stood Doc garbed to the minute the only guarantee of bis professional prow ¬ ess being a large pair of tortoiseshell spectacles and an air of prosperity No other outward sign betrayed his diabolical calling callingFrom From his height of six feet two he looked down upon me curled up in my leather chair among my books the silent companions of the nighttime nighttimeMy My wife divining the look of surprise upon my face paused to remark remarkThe The doctor happened to be passing and called to see you youI I bade him take an easychair and offered him a box of the best cigars he ever saw in his life lifeWHAT WHAT AILED THE SICK MAN MANPerhaps Perhaps continued my wife addressing Doc you would rather be alone aloneThereupon Thereupon she withdrew shutting the door softly as though somebody in the room was about to or had died diedDoc Doc fell into the easy graceful attitude of one who is confident that his victim is cornered corneredHow How do you feel Bob BobAll All right I said freezing up a little at the rapidity with which he let loose his professional stuff stuffYou You look sleepy sleepyWhy Why shouldnt I be I inquired inquiredWell Well said he a man your age ought to sleep at least eight hours out of the twentyfour twentyfourNot Not when his mind is on something else I re ¬ torted enigmatically enigmaticallyAnything Anything your doctor ought to know knowI I dont think it would do any harm I said There are a good many things doctors ought to know especially mine mineHow How long has this been going on onOil Oil for a week or ten days It will get worse between now and the night of the twentysixth twentysixthAnd And then His expression suggested that on that date I was expecting to be electrocuted electrocutedWell Well I am going bass fishing and I cannot sleep for thinking of it I shall probably sleep little foi the next week or so and He awake all night on the train July twentysixth I land at Cryiid Ljike pn the twentyseventh I will fish all day IbiifT until dark eat one meal upon which an average family could live for two weeks and then lie me down on the earth between a couple of pals and get two weeks lost sleep sleepThe The devil you say exclaimed Doc witii unc ¬ tion Is that all thats the matter with yon yonThats Thats all Doc I have it every year yearDoes Does bass fishing always affect you that way wayYes Yes as a child I was inoculated witii its virus All same like hay fever malaria and spring halt haltDOC DOC CATCHES THE SAME COMPLAINT COMPLAINTHe He felt my pulse he counted my heart beats took my respiration and looked me calmly in the eye eyeSlowly Slowly I unfolded a few of the joys that beckoned from the north told him of the myriad lakes that cluster in the Laurentians I described the sandy glado at Grand Lake where we pitched our tent of the bass leaning in the moonlight of the trout that nose the tumbling stream of the starspangled aurorashot zenith under which we slept of how the heart and mind and the spirit articulate in per ¬ fect unison unisonI I transported him from the hospital from his chamber of disinfectants to the perfumed moun ¬ tains nor did I give him ether etherSleep Sleep said I how can one sleep with such a dream postponed and yet so near at hand Do you think a doctor can cure nte of that malady do you think all the science of medicine from the feeble homeopathic pill to the allopathic knockout cai soothe my troubled nerves or close my lids against this nightmare of delay delayTo To Docs eternal credit lie made no response no effort to change my fixed mind no medical bunk escaped hiniv He Iwcame a man manWhere Where is this Grand Lake boy His fingers slipped from my pulse to my shoulder his profes ¬ sional touch became a frigidly stroke How long does it take to get there thereI I leave New York at 745 on the night of the twentysixth and the next day at noon we pitch our tent at three oclock we are fishing at six oclock we arc eating bass of our own taking at nine oclock we are sitting around our camp fire drawing on our pipes and holding communion witii the stars starsAnd And then Doc got up and went to the door and opened it and called my wife into the library Gently and sympathetically lie said to her herMrs Mrs Davis your husband is a sick man The crisis will come oh the night of the twentysixtli of J ly If he pulls through until the twentyseventh lie will live although after that I shall have to spend two weeks day and night in his society lie lias the Avorst case of bookworm I ever saw AMMUNITION FOR THE JOURNEY JOURNEYIt It is a fine tiling to have a wife with a sense of humor a doctor who lias made up his mind to heal himself aniV ufcw rods and reels one can depend upon uponDoc Doc hurried back to his office felt his pulse and ordered himself out of New York City via the Grand Central depot 710 July 2C for Grand Lake by way of Ottawa accompanied by the most intelli ¬ gent patient that fate had ever placed in his care careHis His kit consisted of three suits of old clothes a Newfoundland slicker about which more shall be aid in future two pairs of beaded moccasins liought by his grandfather at the Centennial Expo ¬ sition in Philadelphia 1870 and a grip containing enough medical intruincnts to open a hospital on the Ma mo moWhats Whats in the grip Doc I asked askedOh Oh just a few remedies a little absorbent cot ¬ ton some physicions tape antiseptics ether and a few tools toolsWhat What do you expect to do with them themWell Well I dont like to go into the woods without being prepared for an emergency With the in ¬ struments in this grip I could perform an operation for appendicitisPainless appendicitis Painless Doc DocCertainly Certainly I would give ether etherivc ivc ether I exclaimed petrified at the pros ¬ pect of getting something from a doctor free freeAdminister Administer I mean said lie correcting his pro ¬ fessional error errorWhen When we got on the train awestricken I looked into the depths of his medical kit an extraordinary conglomeration of nickelplated cutlery and odors odorsI I asked him how lie could find anything he wanted With some dignity he turned an appraising eye upon me meDont Dont you know he observed polishing his horn spectacles with great deliberation that the in ¬ voluntary act of the subconscious inind presents amazing possibilities When I leave my office I pack my grip automatically In an emergency my mind goes to the precise implement or object the use of which becomes necessary necessaryFlapdoodle FlapdoodleI Flapdoodle I didnt utter the word audibly but thats what I thought about it itA A night of perfect sleeplessness Doc delivered a lecture lasting two hours on the subject of pipe tobacco We passed under a railroad barrage of flying box cars at the Albany depot At 1 a m 1 reached out to speed up the electric fan and chipped a MMivenir out of my index finger Without a moments delay Doc realizing the great damage to the champion angler of the world and without Availing even to turn on the electric light dived Into his medical supply depot hauled out some iodine absorbent cotton and physicians tape witii which he met the emergency and made an excellent job in total darkness darknessA A sense of having done him a great injustice smote me There it was the involuntary action of the subconscious mind His mind and his art had come to my relief iu that black hour A sigh of gratitude mixed with wonder escaped me There I lay in a Hooverized Pullman car drawing room the thunders of traffic booming about me while Doc the great wonderworker the supreme genius of medical jurisprudence and psychology slept on and on and on Would tomorrow find me in the heart of the wilderness with a superman AVc shall see seeDawn Dawn at last The Canadian frontier frontierAt At Coteau Junction two hours beyond Rouses Point Frank Packard distinguished with me for ¬ ever for having taken me first to Grand Lake for which I can never wholly repay him got aboard our train having come over from Montreal by previ ¬ ous arrangement Doc this is Frank author of The Adventures of Jimmy Dale The Miracle Man etc etcWith With a swift clutch of goodfellowship they crossed palms neither asking the other his last name or caring a whoop What difference did it make make15y 15y the time they got to Ottawa Packard decided that his next novel would be about a doctor and Doc decided that his next patient would be a novelist novelistFrom From Ottawa via automobile after acquiring two dozen cans of every species of canned goods in Canada we hit the trail for Grand Lake and blew into McGregor about six where we picked up Percy Hamilton Larry for short that eminent custodian of all smallmouth black bass in those regions regionsBy By way of information Larrys estate is on Lake McGregor the adjoining body of water to Grand Lake Here we changed our city clothes for rough stuff repacked oitr duffle for canoe traveling swarmed aboard a flatbed wagon and passed over the hill to the south shore of Grand GrandJust Just before pushing our canoes off the golden sand Doc made a short speech speechGentlemen Gentlemen this is the first vacation I have had in sixteen years I never expected to get here I didnt think it was possible that a man could leave New York last night and stand upon the shore of so Imnutiful a body of water in the midst of sucli splendor Come on Doc hop in the canoe said Larry LarryAll All right said Doc stepping lightly across the packsack and planting his feet amidships He waved his hand eloquently toward the setting sun sunAnd And to think that now after all those years this supreme moment has arrived that I am to sleep on the perfumed hemlock boughs and that tonight Sit down you big lobster yelled Larry strain ¬ ing himself to keep the canoe steady in a canvas tent with the soft breezes mur ¬ muring in the high treetops Give him a bat in the jaw I suggested because of my long and intimate acquaintance Slough him To hell with the hemlocks hemlocksDoc Doc sank into the luggage without further pro ¬ test and we slipped off into sixty feet of water Hi finished his remarks on nature geography and sidereal issues sitting down downOjuk Ojuk Island where Larry had previously pitched the tents was two miles from the foot of the lake The route was through a beautiful region of diversi ¬ fied landscape and water waterDoc Doc insisted that he have bass for dinner dinnerYou You have been handing me a lot of guff about the smallmonth black bass fried in bacon fat and corn meal with flapjacks and creamed potatoes and broiled Canadian bacon How about it itYou You said a mouthful Doc I replied repliedFrank Frank jabbed his paddle into the water kind of hard two or three times and we glided away from our pals up the north channel over toward the weed bed a hallowed spot where two three and four pound bass lie in wait for the plug I fanned out a few shots and took two fish Farther down the shore beside a bunch of lily pads I put the steel into three more moreThe The day was waning Doc and Larry had al ¬ ready landed at the camp a thin blue finger of smoke penciled its way through the trees Frank slipped into the lilies across from Ojuk and put mo on four more bass running from two to three and a half pounds We werent out for any fancy work We wanted meat meatThrough Through the haze we could see Doc moving around the camp making an elaborate inspection When the keel of our canoe touched gravel Doc was there to greet us usWell Well boobs I suppose you have got some excuse for not having any fish Guess we will have to cat some canned beans tonight tonightWith With that I slammed a threepound bass at his beaded moccasins and hit them both He clawed the air trying to escape One at a time I heaved the balance at him There they lay big fat white and green flopping monsters completely surrounding him The breath of protest died on his lips Fif ¬ teen pounds of smallmouth black bass smeared on the landscape censored what might otherwise have been viturperatiou viturperatioulieing lieing as how Doc was a surgeon I made the suggestion that perhaps hi might like to select some carving tools from the kit of surgical instru ¬ ments and clean those fish But for some reason or other that kind of humor didnt go with Doc DocIn In a manner of speaking said he when it comes to handling fish I am an osteqnath I likf to run up and down the vertebra bearing along the spinal column with both hands handsDOCS DOCS APPETITE IMPROVES AND WIDENS WIDENSAnd And in this particular line of gastronomic calis ¬ thenics Doc was champion of all the champions of the world worldOf Of course in the end I had to clean the bass myself and with due alacrity I put a pile of chow in front of the old medical man that warmed the cockles of his unlimited heart As the snowplow bucks into the drift as the moose makes his way through the valley as the honker proceeds in his inevitable route southward thus did Doc go through Filet after filet of black bass slipped into his face a heap of creamed potatoes hurried on ¬ ward a bale of broiled bacon fell before his in ¬ furiated charge He swung a dextrous hand across half a pound of cheese a quart of coffee and a stack of biscuits Packard opened a can of Bartlett pears just in time to see them disappear Four slabs of toast which Larry had carefully prepared for his own consumption vanished as vapor before the swift stroke of a noonday sun sunHow How a doctor familiar with the mysteries of his interior department could dump such a large as ¬ sortment of foreign matter into it is beyond my comprehension comprehensionLarry Larry cocked his eye across the devastated No Mans Land which remained remainedYour Your friend is in pretty good shape considering the fact that he hasnt had a vacation for sixteen years said Larry LarryIt It strikes me bawled Packard spearing the last few chilis of black bass which Doc had overlooked that he hasnt had a meal during that time either eitherThe The sacred rights of hospitality require that the guest have the best of it for a few days and sacrifices that one is obliged to make under pressure of cordiality after all become pleasures For that reason Doc for whom the whole proud beautiful flawless outsiile world was being taxed at that moment was made to feel at home homeAt At the expiration of his one hundred yard dasli down the Avenue de Chow Packard and I picked him up bodily chair and all and carried him out on Pine Point which had water on three sides and where there was plenty of air We wanted him to see the sunset to feast his eyes upon that glorious moment when the dying day flares in the western sky and the Master Builder selecting his colors out of the infinite paints a cosmic picture with the sky for canvas Comes a beating at the heart when the winds go down and opalescent hues with golden fringes pile upward and fleecy regiments of shim ¬ mering mist and trembling amethyst march solemnly across the vastness wending their way through iridescent space spacePlop PlopA Plop A bass flung himself from the still mirror cast ¬ ing a spray about him The glinting sunlight caught the rainbow born on his leap for joy joyOh Oh li h h boy boyHOW HOW DOC WAS NOT DISCIPLINED DISCIPLINEDDoc Doc leaned forward in his camp chair drew a long sigh and gave himself up to the beauty the wonder the mystery and the charm of the dying hour The deeper darkness of the east rolled up and across the zenith met the paling and exhausted glow on the western rim of the world and closed town like a vast hood In the hushed silence that comes with nightfall with the campfire tossing its embers through the branches of the trees we planned for the morrow morrowDoc Doc figured out as how he would like to get up at the crack of dawn and slay bass Doc was informed that the bass slaying would begin when we were ready and not when lie was ready readyAbout About eleven p m the new pipe which he was trying to break an and which doubtless bit his tongue fell into his lap Ungracefully lie slipped forward in his camp chair sinking into the arms of George W Morpheus Esquire who enfolded him as the weary child is taken to the breast of a mother A soft mellifluous snore crpt across his lips and floated heavenward Larrv who is some hayhitter himself expressed the opinion that the poor old Doc was all in inThat That fifteen pounds of bass he copped at the dinner table has probably broken him down ven ¬ tured Frank FrankThere There he lay an inert unattractive mass his beaded moccassins glittering in the firelight the ashes of his Jimmyboy smeared across his Gulli verian form Benignant slumber had bowled him over for fair We tossed him gently on a composite bunk made up of rods fishing tackle cameras flashlights and discarded wearing apparel a bed that contained everything but mattresses springs and comfort But what cared little Peter Pan He was to all intents and purposes dead Lights out Now I lay me down to sleep Here dayDaybreak cndeth the first day Daybreak Tomorrow TomorrowThrough Through one eye halt opened I viewed the great M I Somehow or other hu had got on top of him everything which eight hours before was under him still sleeping soundly swallowing large gobs of Natures sweet restorer restorerI I pulled him out of fairyland into the open a rude but successful awakening For one who was accustomed only to mattresses linen sheets and horizontal sleeping apparatus Doc put in a successful night on a bunk that lacked every modern convenience convenienceAs As a matter of fact he woke up whistling stepped out into the soft morning air let out three wild Gargantuan whoops and dived into the lake which he breasted valiantly until the clarion call of Larry the Savarin of camp cooks smote the air airIt It is better to draw a veil over the breakfast which Doc absorbed It was a whale of a meal during which Doc insisted upon singing snatches of Broadway operas college songs and the like Between every course he wanted to get up and wrestle with somebody or chop a tree down orplay duck on the rock or put the shot It was quite im ¬ possible to believe that an hour before Doc was really asleep As an illustration of complete restora ¬ tion to health activity and boisterousncss Doc was without an equal In the delusion that he was prepared at that moment to lick the entire world he was just two laps ahead of the kaiser The fact that lie spilled some maple sirup in Frank Pack ¬ ards hair let a can of marmalade drop face down ¬ ward into the sand and knocked over a large can of prunes set soaking the previous night against the morrow didnt seem to make the slightest dif ¬ ference to him About the only thing that would have knocked Doc sold stone dead would have been a hurry call from the hospital at the corner of Seventeenth street and Second avenue Nothing seemed to calm his ebullient spirit he was free wild and altogether bughouse absolutely drunk on the ozone of the Laurentians stewed on the waters of Grand Lake and pieeyed with the sense of free ¬ dom domTOOLS TOOLS OF TRADE PUZZLE OLD Doc DocIn In the afternoon I selected for Doc a nice white Heddon plug that blushed at both ends and wore a nickel collar designed to give the bait the motion of a swimming fish Also I rigged the best rod I had one which the late Uncle Jimmie one man who literally writ his name in water made for me with his own hands upon which I adjusted a new No 30 reel Then I took Doc out on the point of granite and showed him how to cast Doc studied the equipment carefully carefullyTell Tell me said he what do you expect to catch with this thisBass Bass Doc I breathed softl large redeyed smallmouth battling bass bassWell Well whats the idea of the hooks hanging from the plug plugWhats Whats the idea of any hook Doc The bass always hits the plug from underneath underneathThank Thank you sir said Doc sarcastically I was under the impression that the bass came along and jumped on it You big fathead how can a bass get that in his face faceNow Now you have spoken I continued the idea is that the bass cannot get it in his face The single hook fisherman who defame the plug are always talking about the brutality of this imple ¬ ment As a matter of fact a single hook with a bait on it is the deadliest thing in the world for a bass to get down his throat because when you give him the steel it dislocates both of his kidneys cuts Iiis throat penetrates his viscera and wounds him mortally so that he cannot be returned to the water with any chance of continued existence Being a medical man you must know that a bass injured internally needs no medical assistance to hasten his demise whereas a bass caught with a plug is never wounded seriously as the plug itself prevents the hooks entering beyond the cartilaginous limits of the fishs mouth I offer you this plug my friend because it is the only humane implement with which to take a game fish while at the same time giving the fish an opportunity to prolong his vital statis ¬ tics ticsThats Thats good enough for me exclaimed Doc Come on Larry lets go out and slam a few Wait just a minute I want to get a short club to bat them over the bean when they come in the boat boatPISCATORIAL PISCATORIAL ANARCHIST AT WORK WORKDoc Doc whittled himself a nice twofoot willow stick about an incli in diameter which he assured me was the proper implement with which to rebuke a flopping bass bassBean Bean em kid Bean cm Doc is always laconic when using professional phrases phrasesWith With a salutation befitting the occasion he stepped into the canoe with Larry at the paddle Marc Antony setting sail in a Nile barge to keep a date with Cleopatra was not a sublimer spectacle Hannibal about to cross the Alps was no more im ¬ pressive Tamerlane on the eve of ravaging Persia was a dub compared with the Doc and his retinue In the stern The conquering combination slipped away Frank and I with less noise but equal in ¬ terest followed homage in the wake of the mighty mightyWe We crossed the lake in the direction of the Kill bute halting at some lily pads at which point it required no desperate measures to start a battle with the gamest fish that swims swimsNow Now Doc advised Larry steadying the canoe just cut loose and slam one over there right off those pads Dron her easv Doc and take your time timeYoure Youre on Larry Watch her ride Doc swung his good right arm as per instructions and started a heave that would have landed his plug in Ottawa had the reel not reversed itself and back lashed after fifty feet of line went leaping through the guides The plug halting in midair flopped into the pool poolRight Right there was an opportunity for a doctor of divinity to write a prescription for a man suffering from profanity profanityOn On the still waters lay the plug blushing at both n1s its nickel collar shimmering Doc adjusted iis tortoiseshell goggles and poured his highly technical fingers into a reel bulging with a flock of backlashes Messrs Packard and Davis accustomed to similar spectacles of human agony turned and looked the other way Larry attempted to light his pipe three or four times Doc oblivious to all else rumbled on and on and on inventing creating reconstructing and building phrases that seemed in his opinion to fit the situation situationBang Bang BangWhatthohell Whatthohell is that thatDoc Doc flung a wild glance athwart the waters he plug had vanished vanishedWhere Where is the plug plugIn In resnonse to this query a threepound bass shot skyward and tried to flop the plug out of his face Of all the ghastly attempts to prove the dependability of the involuntary action of the subconscious mind yhnt follows was in my opinion the worst illustra ¬ tion in the history of mental psyscliology A panic ensued ensuedIt It began by Doc throwing his hat in the water Next he attempted to stand up in the canoe an experiment which Larry crimped by a most ex ¬ traordinary manipulation that threw Doe back on his haunches again without upsetting the craft The third maneuver consisted of Doc biting his pipe stem in twain In the interval the bass rin under the canoe and came up on the other side At this juncture Doc decided to strike him No ex ¬ planation is required among us anglers futility is the word Larry spun the stern backward and out and cleared the tackle tackleHOW HOW OLD DOC RAN AMUCK AMUCKI I have seen men operate a multinlying reel before but never like Doc He wound up fifty feet of line the first second then let go of the spindle and skinned all his fingers the next second secondThe The fish went under the boat again came up on the other side broke water and flopped into the canoe The involuntary act of subconscrious mind reasserted itself in a more violent form than at any other moment during the proceedings Doc grabbed his willow nightstick held up the bass and rapped himself over the knuckles twice Pack ¬ ard cupped his hands and shouted in a loud ringing voice voiceBeau Beau him Doc Beau him himBut But advice in such a crisis is of little service Doc threw the fish in the bottom of the boat and planting his large feet upon the struggling creature waited until death ensued ensuedWe We went ashore for fifteen minutes untangled the tackle gave Doc a few more lessons in cast ¬ ing and put to sea again Larry who knows every fish in Grand Lake paddled up to the mouth of a little creek which came into the north end and invited Doc to try his luck there The medical man promptly hung his plug in the willows Through the instrumentality of certain invisible kindly forces which seem to come to the rescue of imbeciles the plug became detached and slid slowly down over a branch to within six incites of the water Here was an ideal opportunity for Doc to pull another Bush League play A three and a half pounder sky ¬ rocketed upward and hung himself by his front teeth Doc lay his rod down in the bottom of the canoe and turning to Larry with the same air of confidence that Robert Fitzsimmons wore when he walked up and soaked Dunkhorst the Human Freight Car one fetid night in Madison Square Garden quietlyPaddle and said quietly Paddle up to him Larry oil paddle up to him And when the paddling hud been completed Doe reached out with his willow billy and rapped that bass hard enough on the frontal development to kill an ox I guess thatll be about all was the pill rollers concluding sentence as he gathered his trophy in inNow Now where do we go from here hereFrank Frank and I constituted ourselves into a gallery and followed him into the Killbutc Doc reversed all form in angling In no single instance did he play the game according to Walton He got most of his strikes while fooling with the backlash He cast in places where no man ever cast before and caught fish A loose plug which he dropped overboard was bashed by a bass and taken down The next day Doc went up there and found the floundering fish still holding on He got the fish and the plug back at the same time Once he lassoed a bass in midair midairFISHING FISHING LUCK OUTSIDE ALL RULES RULESAlong Along about noon on the first day of his Hun tactics in neutral waters the rod flew out of his hand but the floating plug remained aloft We recovered the tackle and began pulling the rod up out of the weeds To keep the plug from follow ¬ ing the line as it came in Doc threw the plug overboard overboardWham Wham WhamAnother Another bass hopped aboard aboardDoc Doc could catch fish He was a mystery and a Mahatma with an angle He could outfish any five experts that ever cast a plug He never got more than fifty feet of line off his reel and man ¬ aged to backlash every other heave When he made a perfect cast nothing happened An intel ¬ ligent formal wellregulated fisherman in the same neighborhood with Doc was ready to commit suicide after watching his tactics for half an hour hourNevertheless Nevertheless when we came back to camp that afternoon Doc had eleven bass in the boat not one under two pounds Moreover he had the same plug he started out with and was ready to bet that he could catch more fish and bigger fish than anybody else in the party for ten consecutive days He wouldnt take any more lessons said lie under ¬ stood the art of casting thoroughly didnt care for any other than the blushing plug Whats more he observed with an air of complete confi dnc dncLarry Larry and I are going out after supper about nine oclock and try some night casting castingWhereupon Whereupon Larry turned his back on Doc and dis ¬ appeared into the tent pulling the flap behind him I am of the impression that Larry went there to sob alone aloneFERVOR FERVOR OF A NUT FISHERMAN FISHERMANAnd And yet that night Doc got Larry into the can again went off on the west shore of Ojuk Isltnd and caught seven more fish You could hca them busting all round him up to midnight V u they got back Larry was game but pale Vviat Doc ilid to him I was never able to Kemine How near that intrepid lunatic came to drowning the best canpe man in Canada is not on record recordBefore Before Larry sneaked into his blankets he took nie down to the beach and in a trembling voice inquired inquiredDid Did this bug ever have anything to do with a lunatic asylum I dont mean as a doctor but as an inmate Hes a nut Take it from me Bob lies a nut Everything he does Is wrong You couldnt teach that guy to fish you would use up ten years of time breaking him of the things he shouldnt do Hes the bestnatured guy I ever saw and white as any man I ever met but when it comes to this bass thing believe me he is one allaround absolute boob I led Larry down through the twilight opened his tent and urged him in He was strangling for further expression I left him struggling with the language in an effort to find suitable words of uncompromising disdain disdainWhen When I got back to my tent Doc was already fast aslecp memories of his first day on Grand Lake melting themselves into dreams dreamsSixteen Sixteen years without a vacation Never caught a bass before Didnt believe that i man could land in that lively region the next day And yet within twentyfour hours almost a score of the best black bass in Canada had fallen to his inexperienced hand and ten days more to come comeVery Very well Doc DocWITH WITH ALL HIS FAULTS THEY LOVE HIM HIMExhausted Exhausted from laughter and conscious of the approaching exhilaration that comes with great weariness I slid down into the blankets with a feeling of great satisfaction satisfactionA A light wind had sprung up from the northeast a thick mist began to roll in followed by a feu drops of rain then a continuous shower Under its soothing bastinadoings I pulled up my anchor and floated away with all sails set Into a somnolent sea seaAbout About midnight I heard a great commotion and flapping as though a bird of gigantic wings was flying over me and then a large bulk appeared at the tent opening something ponderous wallowed in ¬ to Docs bunk Again the rain now falling steadily urged my bark of drowsines into the languid tide tideToward Toward daybreak the shower passed I awoke refreshed and scanned our tent I reached out to arouse Doc My hand came away wet from his blankets A heavy mist hung in his hair Hi clothes piled in a comfortable heap at the foot of his bed were sodden with a thick dew dewMyself Myself Dry as a bone warm and comfortable Overhead outside the tent my something that had protected me during the downpour The noises of the night the flapping without the monstrous shape that had wallowed into the tent and thrown himself into the wet blankets became clear to me meDoc Doc had got up in that blinding storm and thrown his Newfoundland slicker over the ridge ¬ pole poleWhat What a fine joke He had covered me instead of himself himselfI I began to laugh I laughed so hard that Frank and Larry came into our tent I explained the joke while chocking with merriment Here was the greatest joke of the year yearYou You covered that fat guy instead of your ¬ self said Larry reaching over and stroking the Docs saturated blankets blanketsAnother Another involuntary act of subconscious mind I ventured funnyA Gosh it seemed funny A bonehead play Doc Solid ivory stuff an ¬ nounced Packard with a chuckle chuckleDoc Doc came out of his blankets deliberately fixed his horn goggles on his sensitive nose and with professional dignity replied repliedPerhaps Perhaps it was bonehead Frank but you must not forget that Bob is the patient I am only the doctor doctorLarry Larry quit laughing just as though someone had kicked him in the throat throatThe The author of The Adventures of Jimmy Dale glanced at me out of the corner of his eye to see how hard I was hit He didnt say it but he thought Did you get that An impenetrable silence fell between us I would have given an arm to recall my precious crack crackHere Here is a good place to end this story In con ¬ clusion however I would like to make acknow ¬ ledgment that in view of the fact that Doctor Ross McPherson had never before slept under the stars or camped in the open or eaten sand in his corn bread or stretched his Boston personality upon the rough earth he is the best outdoor bunkie with whom it has been my lot thus far to share the wilds Robert II Davis in Field and Stream
