Page:The Way of the Wild (1930).pdf/36

 across the inundated marshes to one of the wooded islands behind the barrier beach. The little coon was a practiced swimmer, but he did not enjoy the prospect of so long a swim as this one would be—a swim of a mile or more across open spaces too brightly illumined by the moon to suit his cautious spirit. Yet there were no terrors in the placid sheltered waters which he must cross comparable with the white tumultuous terror roaring just behind him and threatening each moment to engulf him.

The barrier isle was disintegrating under him. As long as he could he had held his place on a knoll of the sandy ridge, still hoping that after a while the tide would reach its crest and begin to recede. But closer and closer came those rearing white-maned chargers of the surf; louder and louder roared their savage voices; more and more often long tongues of white water shot forward from the onrushing ranks of the breakers and, swishing past his knoll on either side, swept clear over the ridge. It was plain at last that in a little while Lotor's knoll must go; and, wisely, Lotor made up his mind that he would go first.

Sidling down the slope of the knoll away from the ocean, he waded delicately across a submerged carpet of short, jointed, salt grass and dropped suddenly almost out of sight into still water too deep for wading. Then, with only his head and a little