PEPACTON 



when a hawk appears. I surprised an ancient fisher- 

 man seated on a spit of gravelly beach, with his 

 back upstream, and leisurely angling in a deep, 

 still eddy, and mumbling to himself. As I slid into 

 the circle of his vision his grip on the pole relaxed, 

 his jaw dropped, and he was too bewildered to reply 

 to my salutation for some moments. As I turned 

 a bend in the river I looked back, and saw him 

 hastening away with great precipitation. I presume 

 he had angled there for forty years without having 

 his privacy thus intruded upon. I surprised hawks 

 and herons and kingfishers. I came suddenly upon 

 muskrats, and raced with them down the rifts, they 

 having no time to take to their holes. At one point, 

 as I rounded an elbow in the stream, a black eagle 

 sprang from the top of a dead tree, and flapped 

 hurriedly away. A kingbird gave chase, and dis- 

 appeared for some moments in the gulf between 

 the great wings of the eagle, and I imagined him 

 seated upon his back delivering his puny blows 

 upon the royal bird. I interrupted two or three 

 minks fishing and hunting alongshore. They would 

 dart under the bank when they saw me, then pre- 

 sently thrust out their sharp, weasel-like noses, 

 to see if the danger was imminent. At one point, 

 in a little cove behind the willows, I surprised some 

 schoolgirls, with skirts amazingly abbreviated, wad- 

 ing and playing in the water. And as much sur- 

 prised as any, I am sure, was that hard-worked- 

 10 



