BIRTH AND INFANT DAYS 5 



ing in foaming volume through the narrow, forced 

 channel, cast the big floes hither and thither, 

 stranding some upon the banks. 



Above the islet, on an unchmbable rocky pin- 

 nacle, overshadowing a western slope, a solitary 

 silver birch, of unusual height and girth, stretched 

 out bare, wind-maimed limbs to the sky. Here 

 Keneu, the bald, grey eagle, had his eyrie, from 

 whence he kept grim watch over the sedge of 

 the river. Sometimes, at dawn, he called in a 

 prolonged screeching note as he hung out rain- 

 drenched wings to dry in the palest of pale suns ; 

 and Mahng, the loon, would make answer, with an 

 epitome of desolation in his tone, but no terror at 

 all. So wonderful a diver had little to fear from 

 aerial foes. His enemy was the mink, whose home 

 was in the hollow base of the big tree growing at 

 the side of the lagoon, where it widened out to 

 meet the river. And some day that mink would 

 get him. Mahng felt it in his bones ! 



For all the creatures of the islet — the black bear, 

 who had just wakened up from his long winter 

 sleep, and seemed some days to be drowsy still ; 

 the musk-rats ; the otter ; the mink ; the ducks at 

 the water's edge ; and the beavers — the moose calf 



