mudbank and the tangle of underbrush characteristic of most of the lake shore. By the time I was a little more than halfway up to the cabin I began to look for it in earnest, wondering if I had already passed it, for as I remembered, it was about ten miles up from the store. The slough itself led out across the bottom in a generally northeasterly direction and the small stream that flowed into it crossed the county road over on the east side of the swamp some fifteen miles above the highway, as I had told Dinah. After another mile or two went by, I began to worry, fearing that I might have my landmarks wrong and had passed it without recognizing it. Then, at last, I rounded a turn in the channel and saw it. I looked around carefully at the general location after I had gone by, to be sure I would recognize it without trouble on the way down. Of course, I could still be mistaken, but I was pretty sure that was it.
I had nothing to worry about except meeting another boat. I looked at my watch. It was a little after one, and I should be there by two or shortly after. In an attempt to relax and relieve the tension that grew with every bend in the channel, I unwrapped one of the sandwiches and tried to eat it. It was dry and tasted like cardboard, and I threw it into the lake. It’s not much more than five miles now, I thought. There’s not much chance I’ll meet anybody this far up. But still, you never can tell. And right here would be the worst possible place, this near to the cabin. Turn after turn unfolded ahead of me, the lake flat and empty in the midday heat. I came up past the place where I had camped, rounded the last bend, and relaxed all over with a deep breath of relief. There was no one anywhere.
I’d better go up to the house, I thought, just to make sure everything looks all right and that nobody has been there. I had just swung the boat about, to head into the slough toward the landing, when I noticed it. There was something odd about the surface of the lake just above, a peculiar sheen or color to it that did not look right for the position of the sun. It seemed to have the appearance calm water sometimes has at sunset. I turned to look at it again, but the view was cut off by the trees as the boat entered the slough. Just imagination, I thought. Too much strain, and my nerves are beginning to play tricks on me. Then, for some crazy reason, “the multitudinous seas incarnadine” ran through my mind. For Christ’s sake, I thought, I’m getting as jumpy as an old woman.
I was still thinking about it, though, as the boat nudged against the landing. I made it fast with the anchor rope, and then remembered I should refill the gasoline tank of the motor from the can of fuel in the bow. I took off the cap and found the funnel, and when I was unscrewing the cap of the can I spilled a little of the gasoline oil mixture into the half inch or so of water in the bottom of the boat. I looked down at it, indifferently at first, and then, as I watched it spread, with growing horror, while I turned cold all over as with a sudden chill.
Frantically I pushed the boat off and started the motor. Swinging hard around, I headed at full throttle out into the lake, terrified, already knowing what it was and cursing the stupidity that had ever let me fall into such a terrible blunder. No wonder the surface of the lake had looked odd! I swung right as soon as I was out of the slough, heading up the lake toward the spot where I rolled him from the boat. I was at the outer edge of it now and plowing toward the center, looking all around me at several acres of water covered with the microscopic and iridescent film of oil.
It was that outboard motor. I had started to empty the fuel I had heard splashing around inside the tank, and then had changed my mind, thinking it not worth the trouble. There hadn’t been much more than a pint of it, but now, lying