62 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 
minutes fourteen or more were in the play. 
Most of the coasters emerged from an open 
place in the ice over the rapids, but others came 
down the river over the snow. As the otter 
population of this region was sparse the attend- 
ance probably included the otter representatives 
of an extensive area. Tracks in the snow 
showed that four—possibly a family—had come 
from another stream, travelling over a high in- 
tervening ridge four or five miles across. Many 
may have come twenty miles or farther. 
The winter had been dry and cold. The few 
otters recently seen by daylight were hunting 
over the snow for grouse and rabbits, far from 
the stream. Otter food was scarce. Probably 
many, possibly all, of these merrymakers were 
hungry, but little would you have guessed it 
from their play. 
It was a merry-go-round of coasters climbing 
up single file by the slide while coaster after 
coaster shot singly down. Each appeared to start 
with a head-foremost vault or dive and to dart 
downward over the slides with all legs flattened 
and pointing backward. Each coaster, as a rule, 
shot straight to the bottom, though a few times 
one went off at an angle and finished with a roll. 
A successful slide carried the coaster far out 
on the smooth ice and occasionally to the farther 
bank of the river. 
