Page:Life Story of an Otter.djvu/41

Rh the stream and swept by full in their view. Some minutes later two yapping, bog-stained terriers crossed, and then the morass resumed its wonted calm. All this the otters had watched, hissing through their bared teeth, eyes starting from their sockets, and hair bristling erect on their thick necks: even when all was quiet again a great dread still possessed them. Their feral nature had been stirred to the depths, and they listened and listened, though no sound reached them save a faint toot of the horn. Setting-out time came and went, but the otters did not stir, till at length, taking heart from the owls, who filled the wood with their wild hooting, they stole down to the river.

The otter fished, but not a moment was given to gambolling, and long ere the woodman's bantam heralded the day the scared creatures sought harbourage in the branches of a fallen pine whose top lay half immersed in the river. Hidden amidst the flotsam caught by the boughs, with the deep pool just below them, they felt safe, and at length slept as soundly as they had done in the morass.

They repaired to the same hover the next day and the day following. In their waking hours they would watch the eddying water and rising