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Rh next found them ensconced under the bank of the weir pool at Tide End. There they were waked towards noon by the tide, which rose and rose till it invaded their quarters, and compelled them to seek refuge in the opposite bank, where a young dog-otter was already lying up. Their coming startled him not a little, but the moment he saw the new arrivals were otters like himself he settled down again, and soon all three were sound asleep. At dusk they journeyed on together and, after fishing and sporting in the salmon pool below the morass, sought the roots of the alder. They lay there again on the morrow, a morrow momentous in one of its happenings—the separation of the cubs. For when, at setting-out time, the male cub began moving up-water, his sister, till that moment the most faithful of followers, turned her back on him and, with the strange otter at her heels, struck into the wood. She had renounced the brother for the lover. Is it possible, animal though she is, that she can abandon the companion of her life hitherto, without some sign of regret? May not the slowness of her steps indicate reluctance to sever the ties that have so long bound them? Surely it is so, for just as she is about to enter the undergrowth, she stops