.

Next day I set the trap again in the same way. But the mother, with her
lesson well laid out before her, remembered yesterday's unearned success
and came over to investigate, leaving her young ones circling along the
farther shore. There were the fish again, in shallow water; and
there--too easy altogether!--were two dead ones floating among the
whitecaps. She wheeled away in a sharp turn, as if she had not seen
anything, whistled her pupils up to her, and went on to other fishing
grounds.

Presently, above the next point, I heard their pipings and the sharp,
up-sliding _Cheeeep!_ which was the mother's signal to swoop. Paddling
up under the point in my canoe, I found them all wheeling and diving
over a shoal, where I knew the fish were smaller and more nimble, and
where there were lily pads for a haven of refuge, whither no hawk could
follow them. Twenty times I saw them swoop only to miss, while the
mother circled above or beside them, whistling advice and encouragement.
And when at last they struck their fish and bore away towards the
mountain, there was an exultation in their lusty wing beats, and in the
whistling cry they sent back to me, which was not there the day before.

The mother followed them at a distance, veering in when near my shoal to
take another look at the fish there. Three were floating now instead of
two; the others--what were left of them--struggled feebly at the
surface. _Chip, ch'weee!_ she whistled disdainfully; "plenty fish here,
but mighty poor fishing." Then she swooped, passed under, came out with
a big chub, and was gone, leaving me only a blinding splash and a
widening circle of laughing, dancing, tantalizing wavelets to tell me
how she catches them.

When You Meet a Bear

There are always two surprises when you meet a bear. You have one, and
he has the other. On your tramps and camps in the big woods you may be
on the lookout for Mooween; you may be eager and even anxious to meet
him; but when you double the point or push into the blueberry patch and,
suddenly, there he is, blocking the path ahead, looking intently into
your eyes to fathom at a glance your intentions, then, I fancy, the
experience is like that of people who have the inquisitive habit of
looking under their beds nightly for a burglar, and at last find him
there, stowed away snugly, just where they always expected him to be.

Mooween, on his part, is always looking for you when once he has learned
that yo