140 ON A GLASS ROOF 



guiltless line, dropping the untouched bait to the 

 fish or Wojahose, and took the homeward way 

 along the shore for a mile, and then up the Little 

 River of Otters, for hundreds of years, as now, the 

 road of men, fowl, and fish. From it the pickerel- 

 fishers had departed, and the only tokens of their 

 recent occupancy were the deserted holes, with 

 here and there beside one a mangled minnow, a few 

 pickerel-scales, half -burned matches, and the ashes 

 of pipes. The deadness of winter brooded over the 

 lonely icebound stream, and the only sound that 

 broke the stillness besides the crunching of my 

 footsteps was the storm-foreboding hoot of a great 

 horned owl. 



I had almost forgotten to say that I bore home a 

 goodly string of fish, and, as no questions were 

 asked, I got the credit of catching them. Indeed, 

 after a few days, it almost seemed to me that I had 

 caught them. 



