t though at each effort his
strength grew less: again and again the rock teeth hidden in the foam
caught and tore him as he fell. At last, all but stunned and altogether
bewildered, he swam feebly into an eddy close to shore and half turned
upon his side, his gills opening and closing violently.

[Illustration: "AGAIN HE SHOT INTO THE SPRAY-THICK AIR ON THE FACE OF
THE FALL."]

Just about this time a visitor from the hills had come shambling down to
the river-edge,--one of the great black bears of the Quahdavic valley.
Sitting contemplatively on her haunches, her little, cunning eyes had
watched the vain leaps of the salmon. She knew a good deal about salmon
and her watching was not mere curiosity. As the efforts of the brave
fish grew feebler and feebler she drew down closer and closer to the
edge of the water, till it frothed about her feet. When, at last, the
salmon came blindly into the eddy and turned upon his side, the bear was
but a few feet distant. She crept forward like a cat, crouched,--and a
great black paw shot around with a clutching sweep. Gasping and
quivering, the salmon was thrown up upon the rocks. Then white teeth,
savage but merciful, bit through the back of his neck; and unstruggling
he was carried to a thicket above the Falls.

Answerers to the Call

The little lake, long and narrow, and set in a cleft of the deep forest,
led off like a pathway of light to the full October moon. The surface of
the lake was as still as glass, and the woods, rising from each shore in
dense waves, billowy where the hardwoods crowded thick, or serrated and
pinnacled where the fir and spruce and hemlock drew their ordered ranks,
were as motionless as if an enchantment had been laid upon them. The air
was magically clear, almost pungent with suggestion of frost, and tonic
with autumn scents.

In sharp contrast to the radiance of the open, the deep of the forest
was filled with an extraordinarily liquid and transparent darkness,
pierced with hard white lines and spots of light where the moon broke
through. Down along the shores of the lake, under the ragged fringe of
mixed growths where forest and open met, ran a tangle of grotesque,
exaggerated shadows, so solid of outline as to seem almost palpable.

All these shadows were as motionless as if frozen--except one, a long,
angular shadow, which projected itself spasmodically but noiselessly
through the bushes, occasionally darting out upon the naked beach, b