136 DAYS OUT OF DOORS. 



one there to the creek, would never be questioned, and I, 

 for one, ignored a bowlder in the water, suspiciously in 

 line with the bared strip of hill-side, for fear some doubt- 

 ing Thomas might throw discredit on the time- honored 

 playground of the unseen otter. 



Hoping against hope that this rare creature might show 

 himself, if but to silence doubt, we long looked backward 

 until the bending bushes closed the view. Then recalling 

 stern reality, we regretted the base use to which the once 

 noble park was now largely put, and with a few vigorous 

 strokes of our oars we "darted between the close set pilings 

 of a second bridge and sent our craft spinning over the 

 sparkling waters of the river. No change could be more 

 sudden, more complete. We were no longer hemmed in 

 between bluff and meadow, so near that either could be 

 closely scanned, but out upon really open water, for here 

 the river is a full mile in width. 



The clouds had thickened before we left the creek and 

 now threatened the mild disaster of our being lost in a 

 fog ; but we braved this and all other dangers and skirted 

 either shore as the element of wildness proved in the 

 ascendant, or made a straight course down stream far 

 from either shore. When not in mid-river we had warbler 

 music in excess, for to-day the willows teamed, for the 

 first time, with these beautiful migrating songsters. Per- 

 haps, they were too tired or too hungry to sing their best 

 songs, but I was not alone in thinking that sweeter than 

 any efforts of theirs were the united voices of the teetering 

 sandpipers. Continually, when we were in mid-stream, 

 they crossed our bow, greeting us in a wild, winsome way 

 that lightened the gray-black clouds and made us quite 

 forget that a shower was imminent ; and whenever the 

 wind fell, from the distant shores their clear call could 

 still be heard, as they tripped, lightly as the waves, along 

 the pebbly shore. 



