CHAPTER II 



EARLY TRAINING 



When the cubs were a little over eight weeks 

 old, their mother resolved to take them to the 

 pool and teach them to swim ; so one starry 

 night at setting-out time she led the young 

 creatures — overjoyed, as their excited antics 

 showed, at this new departure — to the brow of 

 the rising ground, till then the boundary of their 

 narrow world. There, whilst the otter stood and 

 reconnoitred, the eyes of the cubs wandered 

 wonderingly from slope and rushy hollow to 

 the woods across the ravine, where a vixen was 

 squalling. As no danger threatened, dam and 

 whelps made for the faintly silvered pool lying 

 so still and silent in contrast with the river that 

 ran brawling along its boulder-strewn channel. 

 On reaching it the mother swam slowly out, 

 turning her head the while as if to invite the 

 cubs to follow her, landed on the islet and, in 

 order to work on their feelings and draw them 

 across the water, hid herself amongst the withered 

 sedge. This was not without its effect, as the 



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