CHAPTER VI 



THE FAMILY BROKEN UP 



Sitting there, the cub watched the lurid after- 

 glow fade, dusk creep over the rough water, and 

 the sky darken till a star appeared in a break 

 between the scudding wrack. Then he rose and 

 listened. The waves broke against the point, 

 the reeds hissed, the breakers thundered on the 

 bar, but no call from his mother reached his 

 eager ears. He was beginning to fear she had 

 deserted him when from across the mere came 

 the shrill summons. Immediately he dived and, 

 rising almost at once, headed at excited pace for 

 the creek, where soon, to his delight, he viewed 

 his mother and sister swimming to meet him. 

 The wild gambols that followed in the midst of 

 the mere did not last long, for there was hunting 

 to be done. 



The quarry the otter had set her mind on 

 were the pike frequenting the reedy bays, towards 

 the largest of which the hunters swam. Near a 

 bed of lilies they dived, and had not made half 

 the circuit of the wall of stems before they espied 



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