g how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into
execution. He led me at once to the widest part of the pond, and could
not be driven from it. While he was thinking one thing in his brain, I
was endeavoring to divine his thought in mine. It was a pretty game,
played on the smooth surface of the pond, a man against a loon. Suddenly
your adversary's checker disappears beneath the board, and the problem
is to place yours nearest to where his will appear again. Sometimes he
would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, having apparently
passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he and so
unweariable, that when he had swum furthest he would immediately plunge
again, nevertheless; and then no wit could divine where in the deep
pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a
fish, for he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in its
deepest part.

It is said that loons have been caught in the New York lakes eighty feet
beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout--though Walden is deeper
than that. How surprised must the fishes be to see this ungainly visitor
from another sphere speeding his way amid their schools! Yet he appeared
to know his course as surely under water as on the surface, and swam
much faster there. Once or twice I saw a ripple where he approached the
surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre, and instantly dived
again. I found that it was as well for me to rest on my oars and wait
his reappearing as to endeavor to calculate where he would rise; for
again and again, when I was straining my eyes over the surface one way,
I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh behind me. But why,
after displaying so much cunning, did he invariably betray himself the
moment he came up by that loud laugh? Did not his white breast enough
betray him? He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. I could commonly
hear the splash of the water when he came up, and so also detected him.
But after an hour he seemed as fresh as ever, dived as willingly and
swam yet further than at first. It was surprising to see how serenely he
sailed off with unruffled breast when he came to the surface, doing all
the work with his webbed feet beneath. His usual note was this demoniac
laughter, yet somewhat like that of a waterfowl; but occasionally, when
he had balked me most successfully and come up a long way off, he
uttered a long-drawn unearthly howl, probably more like that