urface, gasping, blinking, and
coughing.

For a moment or two he paddled softly, recovering his breath and
shaking the water from nostrils and eyes. He had an instant of
apprehensiveness, lest the bear should turn upon him and attack him at
a disadvantage; and by way of precaution he gave forth the most savage
and piercing yell that his labouring lungs were capable of. But he saw
at once that on this score he had nothing to fear. It was a
well-frightened bear, there swimming frantically for the sandspit;
while the dead salmon, quite forgotten, was drifting slowly away on
the sullen current.

Barnes's foot was hurting fiercely, but his heart was light. Swimming
at leisure, so as to just keep head against the stream, he watched the
bear scuttle out upon the sand. Once safe on dry land, the great beast
turned and glanced back with a timid air to see what manner of being
it was that had so astoundingly assailed him. Man he had seen
before--but never man swimming like an otter; and the sight was
nothing to reassure him. One longing look he cast upon the salmon, now
floating some distance away; but that, to his startled mind, was just
a lure of this same terrifying and perfidious creature whose bright
grey eyes were staring at him so steadily from the surface of the
water. He turned quickly and made off into the woods, followed by a
loud, daunting laugh which spurred his pace to a panicky gallop.

When he was gone, Barnes swam to the sandspit. There he wrung out his
dripping clothes, and lay down in the hot sand to let the sun soak
deep into his chilled veins.

The Nest of the Mallard

When the spring freshet went down, and the rushes sprang green all
about the edges of the shallow, marshy lagoons, a pair of mallards
took possession of a tiny, bushy island in the centre of the broadest
pond. Moved by one of those inexplicable caprices which keep most of
the wild kindreds from too perilous an enslavement to routine, this
pair had been attracted by the vast, empty levels of marsh and mere,
and had dropped out from the ranks of their northward-journeying
comrades. Why should they beat on through the raw, blustering spring
winds to Labrador, when here below them was such a nesting-place as
they desired, with solitude and security and plenty. The flock went
on, obeying an ancestral summons. With heads straight out before, and
rigid, level necks--with web feet folded like fans and stretched
straight out behind, rigid