NEKIK THE OTTER 249 



webbed feet furrowing a deep rut in the soft snow of 

 the frozen river tell that nekik has taken alarm and 

 is fishing from the other side. And when Christmas 

 comes with a dwindling of the mink-hunt, the man, 

 too, crosses to the other side. Here he finds that the 

 otter tracks have worn a path that is almost a tobog 

 gan slide down the crusted snow bank to the iced edge 

 of the pool. By this time nekik s pelt is prime, almost 

 black, and as glossy as floss. By this time, too, the 

 fish are scarce and the epicure has become ravenous as 

 a pauper. One night when the trapper was recon 

 noitring the fish hole, he had approached the snow 

 bank so noiselessly that he came on a whole colony of 

 otters without their knowledge of his presence. Down 

 the snow bank they tumbled, head-first, tail-first, 

 slithering through the snow with their little paws 

 braced, rolling down on their backs like lads upset from 

 a toboggan, otter after otter, till the man learned that 

 the little beasts were not fishing at all, but coasting 

 the snow bank like youngsters on a night frolic. No 

 sooner did one reach the bottom than up he scampered 

 to repeat the fun; and sometimes two or three went 

 down in a rolling bunch mixed up at the foot of a slide 

 as badly as a couple of toboggans that were unpre- 

 meditatedly changing their occupants. Bears wrestle. 

 The kittens of all the cat tribe play hide and seek. 

 Little badger finds it fun to run round rubbing the 

 back of his head on things; and here was nekik the 

 otter at the favourite amusement of his kind coasting 

 down a snow bank. 



If the trapper were an Indian, he would lie in wait 

 at the landing-place and spear the otter as they came 

 from the water. But the white man s craft is deeper. 



