THE MINK 



estate, changing her mood, thrust him 

 down almost to his old ignoble but safer 

 rank, just in time to avert the impending 

 doom of extermination. Once more the 

 places that knew him of old, know him 

 again. 



In the March snow you may trace the 

 long span of his parallel footprints where, 

 hot with the rekindled annual fire of love, 

 he has sped on his errant wooing, turn- 

 ing not aside for the most tempting bait, 

 halting not for rest, hungering only for 

 a sweetheart, wearied with nothing but 

 loneliness. Yet weary enough would 

 you be if you attempted to follow the 

 track of but one night's wandering along 

 the winding brook, through the tangle 

 of windfalls, and across the rugged ledges 

 that part stream from stream. When 

 you go fishing in the first days of sum- 

 mer, you may see the fruits of this early 

 springtide wooing in the dusky brood 

 taking their primer-lesson in the art that 

 their primogenitors were adepts in be- 

 fore yours learned it. How proud one 

 baby fisher is of his first captured min- 

 now, how he gloats over it and defends 

 23 



