ensely cautious about it, looking, listening,
sniffing continually. I had never gone near the place for fear of
frightening them away; and it was months afterward, when the den was
deserted, before I examined it to understand just what she was doing.
Then I found that she had made another doorway from her den leading out
to the bank. She had selected the spot with wonderful cunning,--a
hollow under a great root that would never be noticed,--and she dug
from inside, carrying the earth down to the river bottom, so that there
should be nothing about the tree to indicate the haunt of an animal.

Long afterwards, when I had grown better acquainted with Keeonekh's ways
from much watching, I understood the meaning of all this. She was simply
making a safe way out and in for the little ones, who were afraid of the
water. Had she taken or driven them out of her own entrance under the
river, they might easily have drowned ere they reached the surface.

When the entrance was all ready she disappeared, but I have no doubt
she was just inside, watching to be sure the coast was clear. Slowly her
head and neck appeared till they showed clear of the black roots. She
turned her nose up stream--nothing in the wind. Eyes and ears searched
below--nothing harmful there. Then she came out, and after her toddled
two little otters, full of wonder at the big bright world, full of fear
at the river.

There was no play at first, only wonder and investigation. Caution was
born in them; they put their little feet down as if treading on eggs,
and they sniffed every bush before going behind it. And the old mother
noted their cunning with satisfaction while her own nose and ears
watched far away.

The outing was all too short; some uneasiness was in the air down
stream. Suddenly she rose from where she was lying, and the little ones,
as if commanded, tumbled back into the den. In a moment she had glided
after them, and the bank was deserted. It was fully ten minutes before
my untrained cars caught faint sounds, which were not of the woods,
coming up stream; and longer than that before two men with fish poles
appeared, making their slow way to the pond above. They passed almost
over the den and disappeared, all unconscious of beast or man that
wished them elsewhere, resenting their noisy passage through the
solitudes. But the otters did not come out again, though I watched till
nearly dark.

It was a week before I saw them again, and some good tea