Mr. Langham's five guests arrived somewhat noisily, smoking five long cigars. Lee and Gay, watching the float from a point of vantage, where they themselves were free from observation, observed that three of the trout fishermen were far older than they had led themselves to expect.

"That leaves only one for us," said Gay.

"Why?"

"Can't you see from here that the fifth is an Englishman?"

"Yes," said Lee. "His clothes don't fit, and yet he feels perfectly comfortable in them."

"It isn't so much the clothes," said Gay, "as the face. The other faces are excited because they have ridden fast in a fast boat, though they've probably often done it before. Now he's probably never been in a fast boat in his life till to-day, and yet he looks thoroughly bored."

The Englishman without changing his expression made some remark to the other five. They roared. The Englishman blushed, and looked vaguely toward a dark-blue mountain that rose with some grandeur beyond the farther shore of the lake.

"Do you suppose," said Lee, "that what he said was funny or just dumb?"

"I think it was funny," said Gay, "but purely accidental."

"I think I know the other youth," said Lee; "I think I have danced with him. Didn't Mr. Langham say there was a Renier among his guests?"

"H. L.," Gay assented.

"That's the one," Lee remembered. "Harry Larkins Renier. We have danced. If he doesn't remember, he shall be snubbed. I like the old guy with the Mark Twain hair."

"Don't you know him? I do. I have seen his picture often. He's the editor of the Evening Star. Won't Arthur be glad!"

"What's his name?"

"Walter Leyden O'Malley. He's the literary descendant of the great Dana. Don't talk to me, child; I know a great deal."

Gay endeavored to assume the look of an encyclopÆdia and failed.

"Mr. Langham," said Lee, "mentioned three other names, Alston, Pritchard, and Cox. Which do you suppose is which?"

"I think that Pritchard is the very tall one who looks like a Kentucky colonel; Cox is the one with the very large face; of course, the Englishman is Alston."

"I don't."

"We can find out from Maud."

When the new arrivals, escorted by Arthur and Mr. Langham, had left the office, Lee and Gay hurried in to look at their signatures and to consult Maud as to identities.

The Kentucky-colonel-looking man proved to be Alston. Cox had the large face, and the Englishman—John Arthur Merrivale Pritchard, as was to be expected—wrote the best hand. Mr. O'Malley, the famous editor, wrote the worst. His signature looked as if it had been traced by an inky worm writhing in agony.

"Tell us at once," Gay demanded, "what they are like."

Maud regarded her frolicsome sisters with inscrutable eyes, and said:

"At first, you think that Mr. Cox is a heartless old cynic, but when you get to know him really well—I remember an instance that occurred in the early sixties——"

"Oh, dry up!" said Lee. "Are they nice and presentable, like fat old Sam Langham?"

"The three old ones," said Maud, "made me think of three very young boys just loose from school. Messrs. Renier and Pritchard, however, seem more used to holidays. There is, however, a complication. All five wish to go fishing as soon as they can change into fishing clothes, and there aren't enough guides to go around."

"What's the trouble?" asked Gay eagerly.

"Bullard," Maud explained, "has sent word that his wife is having a baby, and Benton has gone up to Crotched Lake West to see if the ice is out of it. That leaves only three guides to go around. Benton oughtn't to have gone. Nobody told him to. But he once read the Declaration of Independence, and every now and then the feeling comes over him that he must act accordingly."

"But," exclaimed Lee, "what's the matter with Gay and me?"

"Nothing, I hope," said Maud; "you look well. I trust you feel well."

"We want to be guides," said Gay; "we want to be useful. Hitherto we've done nothing to help. Mary works like a slave in the kitchen; you here. Eve will never leave the laundry once the wash gets big. Phyllis has her garden, in which things will begin to grow by and by, but we—we have no excuse for existence—none whatever. Now, I could show Mr. Renier where the chances of taking fish are the best."

"No," said Lee firmly; "I ought to guide him. It's only fair. He once guided me—I've always remembered—bang into a couple who outweighed us two to one, and down we went."

"Mary will hardly approve of you youngsters going on long expeditions with strange young men," Maud was quite sure; "and, of course, Arthur won't."

Lee and Gay began to sulk.

At that moment Arthur came into the office.

"Halloo, you two!" he said. "Been looking for you, and even shouting. The fact is, we're short of guides, and Mary and I think——"

Lee and Gay burst into smiles.

"What did we tell you, Maud? Of course, we will. There are no wiser guides in this part of the woods."

"That," said Arthur, "is a fact. The older men looked alarmed when I suggested that two of my sisters—you see, they've always had native-born woodsmen and even Indians——"

"Then," said Lee, "we are to have the guileless youths. I speak for Renier."

"Meanie," said Gay.

"Lee ought to have first choice," said Arthur. "It's always been supposed that Lee is your senior by a matter of twenty minutes."

"True or not," said Gay, "she looks it. Then I'm to guide the Englishman."

"If you don't mind." Arthur regarded her, smiling. He couldn't help it. She was so pretty. "And I'd advise you not to be too eager to show off. Mr. Pritchard has hunted and fished more than all of us put together."

"That little pink-faced snip!" exclaimed Gay. "I'll sure see how much he knows."

Half an hour later she was rowing him leisurely in the direction of Placid Brook, and examining his somewhat remarkable outfit with wondering eyes. This was not difficult, since his own eyes, which were clear brown, and very shy, were very much occupied in looking over the contents of the large-tackle box.

"If you care to rig your rod," said Gay presently, "and cast about as we go, you might take something between here and the brook."

"Do you mean," he said, "that you merely throw about you at random, and that it is possible to take fish?"

"Of course," said she—"when they are rising."

"But then the best one could hope for," he drawled, "would be indiscriminate fish."

"Just what do you mean by that?"

"Why!"—and this time he looked up and smiled very shyly—"if you were after elephant and came across a herd, would you pick out a bull with a fine pair of tusks, or would you fire indiscriminately into the thick of them, and perhaps bring down the merest baby?"

"I never heard of picking your fish," said Gay.

"Dear me," he commented, "then you have nearly a whole lifetime of delightful study before you!"

He unslung a pair of field-glasses, focussed them, and began to study the surface of the placid lake, not the far-off surface but the surface within twenty or thirty feet. Then he remarked:

"Your flies aren't greatly different from ours. I think we shall find something nearly right. One can never tell. The proclivities of trout and char differ somewhat. I have never taken char."

"You don't think you are after char now, do you?" exclaimed Gay. "Because, if so—this lake contains bass, trout, lake-trout, sunfish, shiners, and bullheads, but no char."

Pritchard smiled a little sadly and blushed. He hated to put people right.

"Your brook-trout," he said, "your salmo fontinalis, isn't a trout at all. He's a char."

Gay put her back into the rowing with some temper. She felt that the Englishman had insulted the greatest of all American institutions. The repartee which sprang to her lips was somewhat feeble.

"If a trout is a char," she said angrily, "then an onion is a fruit."

To her astonishment, Mr. Pritchard began to laugh. He dropped everything and gave his whole attention to it. He laughed till the tears came and the delicate guide boat shook from stem to stern. Presently the germ of his laughing spread, and Gay came down with a sharp attack of it herself. She stopped rowing. Two miles off, a loon, that most exclusive laugher of the North Woods, took fright, dove, and remained under for ten minutes.

The young people in the guide boat looked at each other through smarting tears.

"I am learning fast," said Gay, "that you count your fish before you catch them, that trout are char, and that Englishmen laugh at other people's jokes."

She rowed on.

"Don't forget to tell me when you've chosen your fish," she remarked.

"You shall help me choose," he said; "I insist. I speak for a three-pounder."

"The event of a lifetime!"

"Why, Miss Gay," he said, "it's all the event of a lifetime. The Camp, the ride in the motor-boat, the wonderful, wonderful breakfast, water teeming with fish, the woods, and the mountains—millions of years ago it was decreed that you and I should rock a boat with laughter in the midst of New Moon Lake. And yet you speak of a three-pounder as the event of a lifetime! My answer is a defiance. We shall take one salmo fontinalis—one wily char. He shall not weigh three pounds; he shall weigh a trifle more. Then we shall put up our tackle and go home to a merry dinner."

"Mr. Pritchard," said Gay, "I'll bet you anything you like that you don't take a trout—or a char, if you like—that will weigh three pounds or over. I'll bet you ten to one."

"Don't do that," he said; "it's an even shot. What will you bet?"

"I'll bet you my prospective dividends for the year," she said, "against——"

"My prospective title?"

He looked rather solemn, but laughter bubbled from Gay.

"It's a good sporting proposition," said Pritchard. "It's a very sound title—old, resonant—and unless you upset us and we drown, tolerably certain to be mine to pay—in case I lose."

"I don't bet blindly," said Gay. "What is the title?"

"I shall be the Earl of Merrivale," said he; "and if I fail this day to take a char weighing three pounds or over, you will be the Countess of Merrivale."

"Dear me!" said Gay, "who ever heard of so much depending on a mere fish? But I don't like my side of the bet. It's all so sudden. I don't know you well enough, and you're sure to lose."

"I'll take either end of the bet you don't like," said Mr. Pritchard gravely. "If I land the three-pounder, you become the countess; if I don't, I pay you the amount of your dividends for the year. Is that better?"

"Much," smiled Gay; "because, with the bet in this form, there is practically no danger that either of us will lose anything. My dividends probably won't amount to a row of pins, and you most certainly will not land so big a fish."

Meanwhile they had entered the mouth of Placid Brook. The surface was dimpling—rings became, spread, merged in one another, and were not. The fish were feeding.

"Let us land in the meadow," said Mr. Pritchard, his brown eyes clear and sparkling, "and spy upon the enemy."

"Are you going to leave your rod and things in the boat?"

"For the present—until we have located our fish."

They landed, and he advanced upon the brook by a detour, stealthily, crouching, his field-glasses at attention. Once he turned and spoke to Gay in an authoritative whisper:

"Try not to show above the bushes."