The next year his success became even more astonishing. They went
to the Titan Club in Canada. The ugliest and most inaccessible
sheet of water in that territory is Lake Pharaoh. But it is famous
for the extraordinary fishing at a certain spot near the outlet,
where there is just room enough for one canoe. They camped on Lake
Pharaoh for six weeks, by Mrs. De Peyster's command; and her canoe
was always the first to reach the fishing-ground in the morning, and
the last to leave it in the evening.
Some one asked him, when he returned to the city, whether he had
good luck.
"Quite fair," he tossed off in a careless way; "we took over three
hundred pounds."
"To your own rod?" asked the inquirer, in admiration.
"No-o-o," said Beekman, "there were two of us."
There were two of them, also, the following year, when they joined
the Natasheebo Salmon Club and fished that celebrated river in
Labrador. The custom of drawing lots every night for the water that
each member was to angle over the next day, seemed to be especially
designed to fit the situation. Mrs. De Peyster could fish her own
pool and her husband's too. The result of that year's fishing was
something phenomenal. She had a score that made a paragraph in the
newspapers and called out editorial comment. One editor was so
inadequate to the situation as to entitle the article in which he
described her triumph "The Equivalence of Woman." It was well-
meant, but she was not at all pleased with it.
She was now not merely an angler, but a "record" angler of the most
virulent type. Wherever they went, she wanted, and she got, the
pick of the water. She seemed to be equally at home on all kinds of
streams, large and small. She would pursue the little mountain-
brook trout in the early spring, and the Labrador salmon in July,
and the huge speckled trout of the northern lakes in September, with
the same avidity and resolution. All that she cared for was to get
the best and the most of the fishing at each place where she angled.
This she always did.
And Beekman,--well, for him there were no more long separations from
the partner of his life while he went off to fish some favourite
stream. There were no more home-comings after a good day's sport to
find her clad in cool and dainty raiment on the verandah, ready to
welcome him with friendly badinage. There was not even any casting
of the fly around Hardscrabble Point while she sat in the canoe
reading a novel, looking up with mild and pleasant interest when he
caught a larger fish than usual, as an older and wiser person looks
at a child playing some innocent game. Those days of a divided
interest between man and wife were gone. She was now fully
converted, and more. Beekman and Cornelia were one; and she was the
one.
The last time I saw the De Peysters he was following her along the
Beaverkill, carrying a landing-net and a basket, but no rod. She
paused for a moment to exchange greetings, and then strode on down
the stream. He lingered for a few minutes longer to light a pipe.
"Well, old man," I said, "you certainly have succeeded in making an
angler of Mrs. De Peyster."
"Yes, indeed," he answered,--"have n't I?" Then he continued, after
a few thoughtful puffs of smoke, "Do you know, I 'm not quite so
sure as I used to be that fishing is the best of all sports. I
sometimes think of giving it up and going in for croquet."
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