Foret touched at the island last to give news of the fight. The case had been dismissed for lack of evidence. There had been no conviction, no fines.
“How did it happen that there were no witnesses?” I asked.
Foret took out his pouch and stuffed his pipe carefully before he answered.
“There was eight or nine fellers there from Blue Bay,” he said. “They looked like they’d come to testify, but, after we had talked to them a bit, it seemed like they hadn’t nothing at all to say.”
“Well, we told them that if any man felt like he’d any information to give, concerning netting fer fish, he’d best make his plans to leave the lake afore twelve o’clock to-night. We meant it too; they knowed that. Black Jack give them some very plain talk, Black Jack did. I guess,” with a grin, “I guess that I was about the politest man there.”
“I was fined once,” William went on, reminiscently, “twenty-five dollars it was too, an’ it just about cleaned me out. They put me on oath, you see, an’ of course, when a man’s on his oath he can’t lie. But the next time I went to town I seen a lawyer, an’ he told me they hadn’t no right to ask me that question. A man ain’t called on to testify against himself. So now, when the judge asks me: ‘Did you, or did you not, net fer fish?’ I says, ‘That’s fer you to prove. Bring on your witnesses.’ Howsoever,” he went on, “as long as all this has come up, I guess we’d as well eat mudcats fer a spell.”
So mudcats it was, until the herring began to run.
Foret has kept me supplied with fish this fall, explaining carefully that he will sell me pickerel, herring, and catfish but not bass. Bass, being a game fish, may not be caught for the market. I have paid for the pickerel by the pound and the bass have been gifts, for, as William justly remarks: “What are a few bass, now and then, in a friendly way?”
Foret is long, lean, powerful, with thin, keen face, steady, dark eyes, and the long, silent tread of the woodsman. Sometimes he works in the Mica Mines; sometimes he farms a bit, or fells trees. More often he hunts and fishes, but always he is a delightful companion, because of his unconquerable optimism and fervent interest in all that concerns a matter in hand. He never admits a difficulty, no obstacle ever daunts him, and no one has ever heard him say an unkind thing about any living creature.