A TORPEDO IN FEATHERS 147 



slender pipes of lily-stalk. The fish was 

 lazily opening and closing its crimson gills, 

 indifferent and with a well-fed air. It hung 

 at a depth of perhaps six feet, and at a 

 distance of perhaps sixteen or twenty. So 

 smoothly, as scarcely to leave a swirl on the 

 surface, the loon dived straight down, then 

 darted for the fish at a terrific pace. His 

 powerful feet, folding up and opening out at 

 each lightning-swift stroke, propelled him 

 like a torpedo just shot from its tube, and 

 tiny bubbles, formed by the air caught under 

 his feathers, flicked upward along his course. 

 The chub caught sight of this shape of 

 doom rushing upon him through the golden 

 tremor of the water. He shot off in a panic, 

 seeking some deep crevice or some weed 

 thicket dense enough to hide him. But 

 the loon was almost at his tail. There 

 was no crevice to be found, and the weed 

 thickets were too sparse and open to conceal 

 him. This way and that he darted, doubling 

 and twisting frantically around every stalk 

 or stone. But in spite of his bulk, the loon 

 followed each turn with the agility of an eel. 

 The loosed silt boiled up in wreaths behind 

 his violent passage, and the weeds swayed 

 in the wake of the thrusting webs. In less 

 than a minute the chase the turmoil of 



