of the rich.

But this was summer. No trapper would have killed him now, for his pelt
was worthless. Nature and instinct both told him this. At this season he
did not dread man, for there was no man to dread. So he lay asleep on
the log, oblivious to everything but the comfort of sleep and the warmth
of the sun.

Soft-footed, searching still for signs of the furry enemies who had
invaded their domain, Kazan slipped along the creek. Gray Wolf ran close
at his shoulder. They made no sound, and the wind was in their
favor--bringing scents toward them. It brought the otter smell. To Kazan
and Gray Wolf it was the scent of a water animal, rank and fishy, and
they took it for the beaver. They advanced still more cautiously. Then
Kazan saw the big otter asleep on the log and he gave the warning to
Gray Wolf. She stopped, standing with her head thrown up, while Kazan
made his stealthy advance. The otter stirred uneasily. It was growing
dusk. The golden pool of sunlight had faded away. Back in the darkening
timber an owl greeted night with its first-low call. The otter breathed
deeply. His whiskered muzzle twitched. He was awakening--stirring--when
Kazan leaped upon him. Face to face, in fair fight, the old otter could
have given a good account of himself. But there was no chance now. The
wild itself had for the first time in his life become his deadliest
enemy. It was not man now--but O-ee-ki, "the Spirit," that had laid its
hand upon him. And from the Spirit there was no escape. Kazan's fangs
sank into his soft jugular. Perhaps he died without knowing what it was
that had leaped upon him. For he died--quickly, and Kazan and Gray Wolf
went on their way, hunting still for enemies to slaughter, and not
knowing that in the otter they had killed the one ally who would have
driven the beavers from their swamp home.

The days that followed grew more and more hopeless for Kazan and Gray
Wolf. With the otter gone Broken Tooth and his tribe held the winning
hand. Each day the water backed a little farther into the depression
surrounding the windfall. By the middle of July only a narrow strip of
land connected the windfall hummock with the dry land of the swamp. In
deep water the beavers now worked unmolested. Inch by inch the water
rose, until there came the day when it began to overflow the connecting
strip. For the last time Kazan and Gray Wolf passed from their windfall
home and traveled up the stream between the two ridges. The c