Page:Life Story of an Otter.djvu/116

Not by mere chance, after rounding the base of Lone Tarn, was the beast's antlered head set for the ravine. It was there he had first seen the light. The early weeks of his life had been spent in the ferny clearing where the otter's trail ran, and his mother used to lead him, a dappled calf, down the steep bank to drink at the shallows of the otter's pool. Four years had passed since then; but the memory of the sombre, sequestered glen and of the pool at the foot of the high fall was still clear in his mind, and to them he turned his wearied steps in the hour of his distress. After crossing the rugged purlieus of the woodland, he threaded his way between the stems of the birches and, entering the ravine at its lower end, made his way up and up along the shaded waters until he came opposite the holt, where a submerged rock permitted foothold. His wild rush through the shallows had filled the startled sleeper with alarm; but the otter did not understand the cause of the strange creature's distress until the cry of the pursuers caught his ears—a cry that swelled louder and louder until every hound had splashed into the pool and swam there, baying their quarry with deafening clamour. More than once whilst the din was at its height the otter was on the point of slipping