TRAPPING UP LITTLE OTTER 169 



When the well-named hillock, Hedgehog Hill, 

 bristled far behind us, the creek narrowed to a 

 channel that barely gave passage to our boats, and 

 our voyage came to an end where a short bridge 

 spanned it. 



A team met us, and loading our boats on to the 

 wagon went lumbering and bumping over the 

 rough-dried clay highway toward our destination. 

 Happily escaping shipwreck on this dried sea of 

 mud, we came to a bright little torrent of cascades 

 and rapids, which we rightly guessed to be the 

 outlet of our pond, then saw the gable of a sawmill 

 peeping over the top of the hill, and then came to 

 its hospitable door, the whole open side gaping a 

 welcome to customers and their logs. Even so long 

 ago the old-fashioned "up-and-down" sawmill had 

 been almost entirely superseded by the modem 

 circular saw, and we lingered a little while to re- 

 fresh our earUest recollections with watching the 

 automatic movements of this relic of old times. It 

 was as interesting to us, grown up, if not so 

 wonderful to us, as when callow urchins, to see the 

 keen saw gnawing its gradual way steadily through 

 the log, tossing up jets of sawdust till the carriage 

 tripped the gate lever, and the machinery creaked 

 to a slow halt; then, in obedience to the push of a 

 lever, the carriage trundled the log back to its 

 first position, the leaping saw attacked it, and 

 again gnawed through it. What a wonder it must 



