Page:Wisdom of the Wilderness (1923).pdf/127

 He was preparing to follow a very distinct mouse trail, when a chance puff of air bore him a scent which instantly caught his attention. The scent of the bittern was new to him, as it chanced. He knew it for the scent of a bird, a water bird of some kind—probably, from its abundance, a large bird, and certainly, therefore, a bird worth his hunting.

Curious and inquiring, he rose straight up on his hind quarters in order to get a good view, and peered searchingly over the grass tops. He saw nothing but the green and sun-steeped meadow with the red-and-black butterflies wavering over it, the gleam of the unruffled water, and the osier thickets beyond. He looked directly at, and past, the guardian bittern, probably mistaking that rigid, vigilant shape for an old brown stump. For the mink's eyes, like those of many other animals, were less unerring than his ears and nostrils, and much quicker to discern motion than fixed form. Had the bittern stirred by so much as a hair's breadth, the mink would have detected him at once. But the mink looked at him and saw him not; nor saw another similar form, unstirring, tensely watchful, over by the waterside.

Having failed to detect the source of that strange, intriguing smell, the mink concluded that it must come from a brooding mother, hiding on