Mike was as good as his word, and gave the skiff as fair an opportunity of behaving itself as was ever offered to a boat.  Seven times did he quit the shore, and as often return to it, gradually working his way towards the western shore, and slightly down the lake.  In this manner, Mike at length got himself so far on the side of the lake, as to present a barrier of land to the evil disposition of his skiff to incline to the westward.  It could go no longer in that direction, at least.

“Divil burn ye,” the honest fellow cried, the perspiration rolling down his face; “I think ye’ll be satisfied without walking out into the forest, where I wish ye war’ with all my heart, amang the threes that made ye!  Now, I’ll see if yer con_trair_y enough to run up a hill.”

Mike next essayed to pull along the shore, in the hope that the sight of the land, and of the overhanging pines and hemlocks, would cure the boat’s propensity to turn in that direction.  It is not necessary to say that his expectations were disappointed, and he finally was reduced to getting out into the water, cool as was the weather, and of wading along the shore, dragging the boat after him.  All this Joel saw before he passed out of sight, but no movement of his muscles let the captain into the secret of the poor Irishman’s strait.

In the meanwhile, the rest of the flotilla, or brigade of boats, as the captain termed them, went prosperously on their way, going from one end of the lake to the other, in the course of three hours.  As one of the party had been over the route several times already, there was no hesitation on the subject of the point to which the boats were to proceed.  They all touched the shore near the stone that is now called the “Otsego Rock,” beneath a steep wooded bank, and quite near to the place where the Susquehannah glanced out of the lake, in a swift current, beneath a high-arched tracery of branches that were not yet clothed with leaves.

Here the question was put as to what had become of Mike.  His skiff was nowhere visible, and the captain felt the necessity of having him looked for, before he proceeded any further.  After a short consultation, a boat manned by two negroes, father and son, named Pliny the elder, and Pliny the younger, or, in common parlance, “old Plin” and “young Plin,” was sent back along the west-shore to hunt him up.  Of course, a hut was immediately prepared for the reception of Mrs. Willoughby, upon the plain that stretches across the valley, at this point.  This was on the site of the present village of Cooperstown, but just twenty years anterior to the commencement of the pretty little shire town that now exists on the spot.

It was night ere the two Plinies appeared towing Mike, as their great namesakes of antiquity might have brought in a Carthaginian galley, in triumph.  The county Leitrim-man had made his way with excessive toil about a league ere he was met, and glad enough was he to see his succour approach.  In that day, the strong antipathy which now exists between the black and the emigrant Irishman was unknown, the competition for household service commencing more than half a century later.  Still, as the negro loved fun constitutionally, and Pliny the younger was somewhat of a wag, Mike did not entirely escape, scot-free.