s, with
that noiseless caution which had become a habit with him in the woods,
a habit which rendered the woods populous for him and teeming with
interest, while to more noisy travellers they seemed quite empty of
life. One thing his study of the wilderness had well taught him, which
was that the wild kindreds do not by any means always do just what is
expected of them, but rather seem to delight in contradicting the
naturalists.

When he reached the edge of the open, however, and peered out across
the dam, there was absolutely nothing to break the shining morning
stillness. In the clear sunlight the dam, and the two beaver-houses
beyond, looked larger and more impressive than they had looked the
night before. There was no sign of life anywhere about the pond,
except a foraging fish-hawk winging above it, with fierce head
stretched low in the search for some basking trout or chub.

[Illustration: "A FORAGING FISH-HAWK WINGING ABOVE."]

Following the usual custom of the wild kindreds themselves, the Boy
stood motionless for some minutes behind his thin screen of bushes
before revealing himself frankly in the open. His patient watch being
unrewarded, he was on the very verge of stepping forth, when from the
tail of his eye he caught a motion in the shallow bed of the brook,
and ducked himself. He was too wary to turn his head; but a moment
later a little brown sinuous shape came into his field of view. It was
an otter, making his way up-stream.

The otter moved with unusual caution, glancing this way and that
and seeming to take minute note of all he saw. At the foot of the
dam he stopped, and investigated the structure with the air of one
who had never seen it before. So marked was this air that the Boy
concluded he was a stranger to that region,--perhaps a wanderer
from the head of the Ottanoonsis, some fifteen miles southward,
driven away by the operations of a crew of lumbermen who were
building a big lumber-camp there. However that might be, it was
evident that the brown traveller was a newcomer, an outsider. He
had none of the confident, businesslike manner which a wild animal
wears in moving about his own range.

When he had stolen softly along the whole base of the dam, and back
again, nosing each little rivulet of overflow, the otter seemed
satisfied that this was much like all other beaver dams. Then he
mounted to the crest and took a prolonged survey of the stretch of
water beyond. Nothing unusual appear