Page:Tarka the Otter.djvu/39

Leaning Willow Island of nearly two hundred kicks a minute, he lost it after a yard. He yikkered in his anger, and oh! Tarka was no longer swimming like an otter, but gasping and coughing on the surface, a poor little sick-feeling cub mewing for his mother.

He felt better when he had eaten a mullet caught by his mother. The fish had come up with the tide and remained in the still pool. Late in the night Tarka caught a pollywiggle, or tadpole, in a watery hoof-hole and thought himself a real hunter as he played with it, passing it from paw to paw and rolling on his back in the mud. He was quite selfish over his prey when his mother went to see what he was doing, and cried, Iss-iss-ic-yang! an old weasel threat, which, being interpreted, means. Go away, or I will drink your blood!

Old Nog the heron, beating his great loose wings over Leaning Willow Island as the sun was making yellow the top of the tall tree, saw five brown heads in the salmon pool. Three small heads and a larger head turned to the left by the fallen tree, and the largest head went on up-river alone. The cubs were tired and did not like being washed when they were in the holt. Afterwards Tarka pushed his sister from his mother’s neck, the most comfortable place in the holt, and immediately fell asleep. Sometimes his hind-legs kicked, gently. He was trying to catch a shining fish that wriggled just before his nose, when he was abruptly flung awake. He yawned, but his mother, tissing through her teeth, frightened him into silence. The day was bright outside the hole.

A kingfisher sped down the river, crying a