182 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
about. Slowly his long, glossy brown neck would 
follow, as he raised his head still higher. Satis- 
fied that no danger was near, he would sink back, 
swim on the surface, or even wade, perhaps, to 
shore, and sitting on the bank, sink his sharp 
teeth into the firm, tender meat of his prey. 
After all, you and I cannot call him cruel, not, at 
least, with good grace. We, too, eat pickerel, 
and we catch them not in a fair chase, speed pitted 
against speed, but by deceit and a barbed hook. 
Besides, we could live on vegetables and bread 
and butter if we had to, but Brownie couldn’t. 
It was fish or starve, for him. 'We—that is, Man 
—talk a great deal about the cruelty of Nature, 
and how one animal preys on another, as if they 
lived in a different world from ourselves, calmly 
ignoring the fact that we too are a part of Na- 
ture, an animal part, and perhaps the most cruel 
of all. 
There came presently a great day in the life of 
Brownie and his brother and sister. Pa and Ma 
Otter announced a trip to distant parts! The 
children, when you come to think of it, had seen 
very little of the world, especially the world above 
