BEYOND its barren wastes, inland, the dune country merges into the fertile soil and comes into contact with the highly trained selfishness which in this age of iron we call civilization. The steady waves of such a civilization have thrown upon this desolate margin some of its human derelicts—men who have failed in the strife and who have been cast ashore. Their little huts of driftwood are scattered here and there at long distances from each other, among the depressions and behind the big masses of sand along the shore.

Their faces wear a dejected look. They walk with shambling step, and their bearing is that of men who have received heavy blows in their early struggles, which have extinguished the light in their lives. They are, as a rule, morose and taciturn. They have become desocialized, and have sullenly sunk into the hermit lives that harmonize with the dead and tangled roots which the roving sands have left uncovered to bleach and decay in the sun and rain.

They eke out a simple existence with their nets and set-lines in the lake, and by shooting and trapping the small game which still lives in this region. The driftwood supplies them with fuel in winter, and occasional wreckage that is washed ashore sometimes adds conveniences and comparative luxury to their impoverished abodes.

The world has gone on without them, and they are content to exist in solitudes where time is measured by years, rather than by achievement.

Sometimes the bitterness of a broken heart, or the story of thwarted hopes, will come to the surface out of the turbid memories which they carry. When their confidence is inspired by sympathetic association, they will often turn back some of the hidden pages in the stories of their lives, which are almost always of vivid interest.

Feeble flashes will then light up from among the dying embers. The story is not the one of success that the world loves to hear, but it is usually the melodies in the minor keys that touch our hearts. Many of the simple narratives, told under the roof of driftwood, before the rude scrap iron stove, are full of homely philosophy, subtle wit, and tragic interest.

“Old Sipes” was a grotesque character. He was apparently somewhere in the seventies. He had but one eye, his whiskers were scraggly, unequal in distribution, and uncertain as to direction. His old faded hat and short gray coat were quite the worse for wear, and a few patches on his trousers, put on with sail stitches, added a picturesque nautical quality to his attire.

He lived in a small driftwood hut, compactly built, about sixteen feet long, and perhaps ten feet wide. A rude bunk was built into one side of the single room, and another was placed about three feet above it.

He explained this arrangement of the bunks with quite a long story about a friend of his named Bill Saunders. It seems that he and Saunders had once been shipmates. They had been around the world together, and had cruised in many far-off waters. A howling gale and a lee shore had finally put an inglorious end to the old ship and most of the crew, and left Sipes and Bill on an unknown island in the South Pacific.

His stories of the man-eating sharks and other sea monsters which infested these waters, were hair-raising, and his descriptions of the wonderful natives whom they met, indicated that somewhere a race of people exists that the ethnologists have never found—and would be much astounded if they did. His accounts of man-apes and strange reptiles, olive-skinned beauties, and fierce war-like men nearly seven feet tall, would have made a modern marine novelist pale with envy.

No ship had ever sailed that was as stanch as the “Blue Porpoise,” and no winds had ever blown before like those that took away her proud sails and ripped the shrouds from her sides. No fish-poles had ever bent as her masts did when the ropes parted, and no waves had ever soared as high as those that broke in her faithful ribs, and cast the two shipmates high on the sands of that distant island.

After years of waiting for a friendly sail, Bill married into the royal family several times, and became a part of the kingdom. Sipes persistently resisted blandishment for nearly five years, when a small cloud of black smoke on the horizon gradually grew into a tramp steamer. A boat came ashore for fresh water, and our hero gladly became a member of the crew, leaving happy Bill in the land of luxury and promiscuous matrimony. After a long voyage he was put ashore at some gulf port and became a wanderer.

How he got into the sand hills he didn’t exactly know, but his idea was to keep as far as possible away from salt water. He had developed an antipathy for it, and felt that the lake would be quite sufficient for his future needs.

I asked him how he spent his time, and he said, “mostly smokin’ an’ thinkin’ about Bill, an’ them sirenes, an’ their little black an’ tan families, ’way off down there in the South Pacific.”

He hoped that Bill would change his mind and come back to a decent country. Perhaps Bill might find him here, and if he did the extra bunk would come in handy. He said that somehow he didn’t feel so lonesome with the other bunk above him, and, at night, he often thought that maybe Bill was in it.

His idea of what constitutes companionship may appear a little crude to some of us, but after all it is our point of view that makes us happy or unhappy in this world.

I asked him if he thought Bill would be able to find him if he ever tried to, and he replied, “never you mind—you leave that to Bill. He’s a wonder.”

I regretted that he did not tell me all about what happened to Bill after he had left him on the island. This would not have been at all impossible if he had taken up the subject with the same compositional ability that he applied to the rest of his narrative.

His conversational charms were somewhat marred by a slight impediment in his speech, which he said had been acquired in trying to pronounce the names of all the foreign parts he had visited. Now that he had got settled down the impediment was becoming much less troublesome.

His brawny arms and chest were tattooed with fantastic oriental designs—fiery-mouthed dragons, coiling snakes in blue and red, and rising suns—which he said had been “put on by a Chink” when he was ashore for three weeks in Hong Kong. The intricacy and elaborateness of the work indicated that a large part of the three weeks must have been spent with the tattoo expert, for he had absorbed much more of Chinese art in the short time he had been in contact with it than most modern scholars do in a lifetime.

In answer to a delicate allusion to his missing eye, he declared that it had been blown out in a gale somewhere off the coast of Japan. The terrible winds had prevailed for nearly two weeks, and his shipmate, Bill Saunders, had lost all of his clothes during the blow. The eye had gone to leeward and was never recovered. He said it was glass anyway, and he never thought much of it. How the original eye had been lost he did not explain. He wore what he called a “hatch” over the place where the eye ought to be, and said that “as long as there was nothin’ goin’ out,” he “didn’t want nothin’ comin’ in.”

His “live eye,” as he called it, had a wide range of expression. It was shrewd and quizzical at times, occasionally merry, and often sad. It would glitter fiercely when he talked of some of his “aversions,” or told of wrongs he had suffered. In his reminiscent moods it would remain half closed, and there was a certain far-away look that seemed to wander in obscurity. This lone eye was the distinguishing feature of a personality that seemed to dominate the little world around it.

I asked this ancient mariner if he had many visitors. He replied that the artists bothered him some, but outside of that he seldom saw anybody “’cept them I have business with, an’ them two guys that live about three miles apart down the shore, an’ the game warden that comes ’long oncet in a while. If people commence buttin’ in ’ere I’m goin’ to git out, an’ go ’bout forty miles north, where I can’t hear the cars. I ain’t got much to move. The stuff’ll all go in the boat, an’ I’ll just take my ol’ flannel collar an’ the sock I keep it in, an’ skip.”

He seemed to feel that he could properly criticize most of the people he had met, being practically free from frailties himself. Although he was somewhat of a pessimist, there was seldom much heartfelt bitterness in what he said. His mental attitude was usually that of a patronizing and indulgent observer. His satirical comments were generally tempered with unconscious humor. He knew that out beyond the margins of the yellow hills lay a world of sin, for he had been in it, and his friend Bill was in it now. His philosophy did not contemplate the possible redemption of anybody he had ever met in the dunes, with one or two exceptions. He thought that most of them were “headed fer the coals.”

“Happy Cal,” was one of his pet aversions, and from a human standpoint, he considered him a total loss. They had once been friends, but Sipes was now “miffed” and there was rancor in his heart. Cal had “gone off som’eres,” but the wound was unhealed. The trouble originated over the ownership of a bunch of tangled set-lines, which had got loose somewhere out in the lake, and drifted ashore some years ago. It was conceded that neither of them had owned the lines originally, but Cal thought they ought to belong to him as he had seen them first.

Sipes descried the soggy mass and carried it up the beach to his shanty. Cal came after the prize before daylight the next morning, but found that he had been forestalled. Sipes spent two days in getting the tangles out and had stretched the lines out to dry. One night they were mysteriously visited and cut to pieces.

A few days later a piece of board, nailed crosswise to a stake which was driven into the sand, appeared about a mile down the shore, between the two shanties. On it was the crude inscription:—“The Partys that cut them lines is knone.”

While protesting that he was perfectly innocent, Cal looked upon this as a deadly personal affront, and the entente cordiale was forever broken.

After this Sipes bored a small hole in the side of his shanty, through which he could secretly reconnoiter the landscape in Cal’s direction when occasion required. He was satisfied that Cal would be up to something some day that he would catch him at, and thus even the score.

I had noticed a similar hole in the side of Cal’s hut, during a day that I had spent with him two years before.

Since the disappearance of Cal the old man had used the peep hole to enable him to avoid the visits of a certain other individual with whom he had become disgusted. Through it he would study any distant approaching figure on the shore that looked suspicious, with an old brass marine spy glass, that he said “had bin on salt water.” If he was not pleased with his inspection, he would quietly slip out on the opposite side and disappear until the possible visitor had passed, or had called and discovered that Mr. Sipes was not in. He referred to his instrument as a “spotter,” and claimed that it saved him a lot of misery. While more refined methods of accomplishing such an object are often used, none could be more effective.

After learning what the orifice was for, I always felt highly flattered when I found my old friend at home, although I sometimes had rather a curious sensation, in walking up the shore, feeling that far away the single brilliant eye of old Sipes might be twinkling at me through the rickety old spy glass. Astronomers tell of unseen stars in the universe, which are found only with the most powerful telescopes. These orbs, isolated in awful space, may be scrutinizing our sphere with the same curiosity as that behind the little spotter in the dim distance on the beach.

I made a practice of taking a particularly good cigar with me on these expeditions, especially for Sipes, which may have helped to account for his almost invariable presence when I arrived. He would accept it with a deprecating smile and a low bow. If the weather was pleasant he would seat himself outside on the sand, with his back against the side of the shanty, and extend his feet over the crosspiece of a dilapidated saw-buck near the door. He would carefully remove the paper band from the cigar, light it, and tilt it to a high angle. After a few whiffs of the fragrant weed, he once sententiously remarked, “Say, this is the life!—I’d ruther be settin’ right ’ere, smokin’ this ’ere seegar, than to be some famous mutt commandin’ a ship.”

The cigar bands were always scrupulously saved. He hoped eventually to get enough of them to paste around the edges of a picture which was stuck up on his wall opposite the bunks, and was willing to smoke all the cigars that might be necessary to furnish the requisite number of bands for this frame, which he thought would “look fine.” The picture had been taken from the colored supplement of some old sporting journal, and depicted two prominent pugilists in violent action. When he had “cussed out” nearly everybody else, he would take up the case of one of these champions, who had gone into the ring once too often. His ornate vocabulary came into splendid play on these occasions, and the unfortunate “pug” had no professional reputation left when the old man had finished his remarks.

There was an interesting and formidable array of armament in Sipes’s shanty. In one corner stood an old-fashioned muzzle-loading, big bore shotgun, weighing about sixteen pounds, with rusty barrels and one broken hammer. The stock had once been split, but had been carefully repaired and bound with wire. It was a murderous looking weapon.

A heavy rifle of antiquated pattern was suspended from a couple of hooks above the bunks, but the old man explained that this piece of ordnance was “no good,” as he “couldn’t git no catritches that ’ud fit it, an’ it ’ad a busted trigger an’ a bum lock.” He had traded some skins for it years ago, and “the feller that ’ad it didn’t ’ave no catritches neither. I was stung in that trade, but them skins wasn’t worth nothin’ neither. Some day I’ll trade it off to some feller that wants a good rifle.”

On the shelf was a sinister looking firearm, which had once been a smooth-bore army musket. The barrel had been sawed off to within a foot of the breech. This he called his “scatter gun.” It was kept loaded with about six ounces of black powder, and wadded on top of this was a handful of pellets which he had made out of flour dough, mixed with red pepper, and dried in the sun. He explained that, at three rods, such a charge would go just under the skin. “It wouldn’t kill nothin’, but it ’ud be hot stuff.” He was keeping it “fer a certain purpose,” the nature of which he refused to divulge.

The intended destiny of the “hot stuff” was suggested by a story I afterwards heard from “Catfish John.” It seems that an eccentric character occasionally roamed along the beach who was a theological fanatic. He had tried to convert Sipes, and had often left tracts around the shanty when the owner was absent. He was intensely Calvinistic and utterly uncompromising in his beliefs. John did not consider that he was “quite all thar.” This unkempt individual projected his red bushy whiskers and wild eyes through Sipes’ open window one night.

“Do you believe in infant damnation?” he roared.

“Wot?” asked the dumfounded Sipes.

“’Cause if ye don’t yer jest as sure to go to hell as the sun is to rise tomorrer mornin’,” the intruder continued. He then left as suddenly as he had come. “Sipes sailed a pufectly good egg after ’im, but it didn’t stick,” remarked John.

It was Sipes’s custom to take the old shot gun over into the marshes of the back country, and shoot ducks in the fall and spring. His ideas of killing ducks were worthy of the Stone Age, for it was meat that he sought, and not sport. He always “killed ’em settin’,” and would “lay fer ’em ’till fifteen er twenty got in a bunch, an’ then let ’em ’ave both bar’ls.

“I don’t allow nobody but me to shoot that gun. It kicks like it was drivin’ some spiles, an’ so does my scatter gun. When it goes off one end is pretty near as bad as the other. I fetch them ducks home an’ salt down them I can’t use right off, an’ sometimes I git enough to last all winter.”

I suggested that lighter charges might cause less recoil, and do just as much execution.

“Not on yer life,” he replied, “if they ain’t no kick behind they won’t be no kick forrads, an’ the shot won’t go no distance. Now just lemme show you.”

In spite of my protest, he got the gun out, loaded it far beyond its maximum efficiency, and fired it at a passing flock of sandpipers, that were fortunately beyond range. The report was like a thunder clap, and when the echoes died away, and it was evident that the innocent little creatures had escaped unharmed, he explained that he “wasn’t any good at shootin’ ’em flyin’, but them shot made ’em skip all right.”

I had my own suspicions as to what had made the little birds “skip.”

His supplies of ammunition were obtained for him at the general store in the sleepy village by his old friend “Catfish John,” whose reward consisted in portions of the bloody spoil from the marshes.

Sipes’s shanty would have been a most unpleasant place to approach if hostility should develop inside of it. He “didn’t want no monkeyin’ ’round that joint, an’ they wasn’t goin’ to be none.”

It was to the old man’s credit that he let most of the wild life alone that he could not utilize. The crows, gulls, and herons along the beach did not interest him. The songsters and the little shore birds were exempt on account of their size. They required too much ammunition, and it was too much trouble to pick them.

Occasionally a pair of eagles would soar around over the dune country. These he longed to kill, but he could never get near enough to them. The wary birds were inconsiderate, and “wouldn’t never light, ’cept away off.”

A “hoot’n owl” somewhere in the ravine caused him many sleepless nights. Its prolonged and unearthly cries frequently startled him from dreams of his friend Bill off in the South Pacific, and he spent many hours prowling softly around among the trees in the darkness, trying to locate the offender. Probably the owl, in the wisdom of his kind, had kept the silent stealthy figure under observation, and was careful not to do any hooting within shooting distance,—certainly an example to be emulated. He usually resumed his lamentations when Sipes returned to his shanty.

The old man had this owl listed as one of his bitter enemies, and annihilation awaited the wily bird if he ever found it. “One hoot’n owl’s too dam’ many to have ’round,” he declared. “This critter reminds me o’ one night when I was on a ship off the coast o’ South Ameriky.

“I was aloft on one o’ the yard-arms, an’ there was a little roll on the sea. I seen some long white streaks o’ foam comin’, about two points offen the lee bow, an’ there was sumpen that shined in the moonlight mixed up in it. It seemed all yellow, an’ about two hundred feet long, an’ it flopped up an’ down. When it got close, it opened up a mouth pretty near half as big as the ship, an’ let out an awful yell. It sounded like a hoot’n owl, only ten thousand times louder an’ deeper. Then it dove down an’ went under the ship. The sails all shook, an’ my blood was froze, so I couldn’t call out to the feller at the wheel, an’ I dropped off on to the deck.

“I never found out what the cussed thing was. If I’d bin drinkin’ very much I’d ’a’ thought I had the jimmies. The wheel feller said he hadn’t noticed nothin’, but I did all the same, an’ I’ll never fergit it.

“I had some ter’ble experiences off down there in that part o’ the gorgofy. We sailed fer months an’ months, an’ never seen nothin’ but the big waves an’ the sky. There was a lot o’ latitude an’ longitude, an’ me an’ Bill used to offen wonder, when we was roostin’ out on the bowsprit smokin’ at night, what ’ud happen if we butted into one o’ them lines that’s always runnin’ up an’ down an’ sideways on them salt water maps.

“There was ter’ble perils all the time. Sometimes we’d run among icebergs, an waterspouts, an’ cyclones, an’ we wallered in bilin’ seas, an’ the skies was black as yer hat, an’ we got lost on the ocean a couple o’ times, an’ we got smashed up on that island I told ye about. You bet this lake’s plenty wet enough fer me, an’ I’m goin’ to spatter ’round right ’ere, an’ if Bill was only ’ere instid o’ cavortin’ ’round with them South Pacific floozies, I’d be all right.”

Some of Sipes’s many sea yarns sounded suspiciously like stories I had read in early youth, but I generally gave him the benefit of the doubt, as he did not need to be strictly truthful to be entertaining. In one instance he related a thrilling tale in which his experiences were practically identical with those of the hero in a favorite yellow covered treasure of years ago. I rather tactlessly called his attention to that fact. He at once replied, “Now you see how queer some things git ’round in this world. I was that feller.”

After that I considered comment hopeless, and simply listened.

Perhaps this lonely philosopher may have solved one of the problems of existence that have baffled more serious and deeper thinkers. He has perfectly adjusted himself to his environment, and his life is complete and happy within it. Even his many aversions give him more pleasure than pain. His memories afford him abundant and pleasant society, and he is able, psychologically, to import his friend Bill when he needs him. Beyond these things he apparently has no desires. To use his own expression,—“the great an’ pow’rful o’ the earth ’as got nothin’ on me.”

That priceless jewel, contentment, is his, and the kindly fates could do little more for one who wore a crown.