2OO 



but the river held no life above its hurrying 

 flood. I searched the banks carefully and 

 peered suspiciously into the woods behind 

 me; but save for the dodging of a winter 

 wren, who seems always to be looking for 

 something that he has lost and that he does 

 not want you to know about, the shores were 

 wild and still as if just created. I whipped 

 out my flies again. What was that, just be- 

 yond the little wavelet where my Silver Doc- 

 tor had fallen? Something moved, curled, 

 flipped and twisted nervously. It was a tail, 

 the tip end that cannot be quiet. And there 

 an irrepressible chill trickled over me as I 

 made out the outlines of a great gray beast 

 stretched on a fallen log, 

 and caught the gleam of 



