72 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



edge of a nostril quivered. A big sucker 

 with a snout that overhung, and opened and 

 shut greedily, came nosing the mud close up 

 under his face. With a lightning scoop the 

 waiting paw descended, and the fish, amid a 

 noisy splashing, was hurled out upon the bank, 

 half stunned. Before it could recover itself 

 enough to flop, the bear was upon it. Picking 

 it up between his jaws, he carried it lazily 

 back to that dry couch he had found beneath 

 the tree of the hornets, there to be eaten at 

 his leisure. 



While the bear, ponderous and sullen, was 

 mumbling over his meal in that uncouth 

 solitude, there came, moving briskly down 

 the brook's margin, a gay little figure that 

 seemed an embodied protest against all the 

 dark and enormous formlessness of the swamp. 

 It was as if the world of sunlight, and swift 

 motion, and bright vitality, and completed 

 form, had sent in its herald to challenge the 

 inertness of the gloom. 



The tripping little figure was about the 

 size of a fox, and with the long, pointed, 

 inquisitive muzzle of a fox. Its abundant 

 fur was of a cloudy, irregular yellowish-grey, 

 darkening at the tips, and shading to almost 

 black along the back. Its tail was long, 

 light, and vividly barred with black. Its 



