Young Hunters 



frosty, hard at work cutting sedges on the edge 

 of the meadow or swimming out through the 

 rushes, making long glittering ripples as they 

 sculled themselves along, diving where the 

 water is perhaps six or eight feet deep and 

 reappearing in a minute or so with large mouth- 

 fuls of the weedy tangled plants gathered from 

 the bottom, returning to their big wigwams, 

 climbing up and depositing their loads where 

 most needed to make them yet larger and firmer 

 and warmer, foreseeing the freezing weather 

 just like ourselves when we banked up our 

 house to keep out the frost. 



They lie snug and invisible all winter but do 

 not hibernate. Through a channel carefully 

 kept open they swim out under the ice for mus- 

 sels, and the roots and stems of water-lilies, 

 etc., on which they feed just as they do in sum- 

 mer. Sometimes the oldest and most enterpris- 

 ing of them venture to orchards near the water 

 in search of fallen apples; very seldom, how- 

 ever, do they interfere with anything belonging 

 to their mortal enemy man. Notwithstanding 

 I 179 1 



