end of the open water myself, but to the eastward of the channel in which Nunn and his passenger had disappeared. Directly ahead another winding and timber-walled channel came in, bearing off to the north and east. The boat came to rest and I shipped the oars, kicking it ahead now and then between casts into pockets among the pads off to my left. After five minutes nothing had struck the silvery streamer fly I was using, so I removed it from the leader and fastened on a green, cork-bodied popping bug. I dropped it in a small opening thirty feet away, twitched the line to make it gurgle, and a bass smashed it, erupting from the water with a head-shaking leap as I set the hook. I worked him away from the pads, wore him down, and slipped the net under him to work the hook out of his mouth. I lost the next two, and then landed another which I also released. For a half hour I gave myself up wholly to the sheer joy of fishing, and the baffling riddle of those twenty dollar bills was gone from my mind. The sun came up and it began to be hot. There was no breeze at all and the surface of the lake was like glass.

As abruptly as it had started, the fishing went dead. I changed lures a half-dozen times with no success. I stopped casting, and just as I was lighting a cigarette I heard an outboard motor somewhere to the northward of me. Nunn, I thought. Apparently he wasn’t finding the fishing any better and was moving around. Then I became aware the sound was coming from the channel directly ahead of me. I looked around over my shoulder and saw the boat as it came into view around the first bend. It was a skiff with a small outboard. There was one man in it. He came on out into the open lake, changed course slightly, and passed about seventy-five yards away, headed toward the inlet at the lower end where the camp was located. I waved, and he lifted a hand momentarily in greeting, a small man in overalls and a big, floppy straw hat. It wasn’t a rental boat; all of Nunn’s were green. Probably a local, I thought; he apparently had no fishing gear with him. A few people lived up there in the swamps, mostly muskrat trappers and perhaps a moonshiner or two.

I took up the rod again and went on fishing, but I was only going through the motions now, while my mind returned to the same old questions. The sun grew brassy, and was reflected with an eye-searing glare off the surface of the lake. After a while I saw the man in the big straw hat come out of the inlet in his boat, headed back up lake. He went past some fifty yards off, lifted his hand in a brief greeting, and entered the channel from which he had come in the first place. He had what appeared to be a carton in the forward end of the skiff. Shopping, I thought, remembering the small stock of groceries they kept at the camp.

The morning dragged on. I had a few desultory strikes from panfish, but the bass had apparently gone to sleep for the day. I began to be thirsty. This was a waste of time; the whole thing was stupid, anyway. Just what I expected to find? And how? The absurdity of it caught up with me and I cranked the motor with a feeling of disgust. Go on back to town and forget it.

I headed down lake and looked at my watch as I entered the mouth of the narrow inlet. It was after eleven. Returning to town now after reserving the cabin and boat for two days was going to look a little odd, but I’d just say I didn’t feel well. What difference did it make, anyway? I cut the motor and began gliding up the float in the shade of the trees along the bank, and in the sudden silence I thought I heard a car somewhere out in the timber beyond the clearing. It sounded as if it were going away, and then it faded out and I wasn’t even sure I’d actually heard it. I made the skiff fast to the float and started to loosen the clamps to remove the motor from the transom. Never mind, I thought;