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They were taken back to the ponds, and thence to the pool by the farm, but the scent was weak above the waterfall. They again "cast" to the upper end of the garden, and onward to the river. Carefully searching every hole and corner in the bank, they drew down-stream around the bend, and at last struck the scent of the otters among the reeds below the pool.
"If crowds of people would come to see the sources of the Avonne, you'd be rich, Grandpa Fourchon," said Marie. "Yes," he said, drinking the last glassful the bottle contained, "and I've played the sham otter so long, the live otters have got angry, and one of them came right between my legs to-day; Mouche caught it, and I am to get twenty francs for it."
Fettje Otters died next day, and also Cornelius Thysse on the 17th, a man in whom his comrades rested their chief hope next to God. Notwithstanding the weakness of the survivors, who could scarce support themselves on their legs, they contrived to make three coffins for the deceased, and put their bodies into them.
Here and there some squire or huntsman nurtured a particular strain and developed a type which he kept pure, and at many a manor-house and farmstead in Devonshire and Cumberland, on many a Highland estate and Irish riverside where there were foxes to be hunted or otters to be killed, terriers of definite strain were religiously cherished.
We came to a place where weare abundance of Otters, in so much that I believe all gathered to hinder our passage. We killed some with our arrows, not daring to shoote because we discovered there abouts some tracks, judging to be our ennemy by the impression of their feet in the sand.
Slowly her head and neck appeared till they showed clear of the black roots. She turned her nose up stream nothing in the wind. Eyes and ears searched below nothing harmful there. Then she came out, and after her toddled two little otters, full of wonder at the big bright world, full of fear at the river. There was no play at first, only wonder and investigation.
Of Otters we may take like store. There are Sea Guls, Murres, Duckes, wild Geese, and many other kind of birdes store, too long to write, especially at one Island named Penguin, where wee may driue them on a planke into our ship as many as shall lade her.
There were two splendid black bear-skins, two or three dozen martens, or sables, five or six black foxes, and a great many silver foxes, besides cross and red ones. In addition to these, he had a number of minks and beaver-skins, a few otters, and sundry other furs, besides a few buffalo and deer-skins, dressed, and with the hair scraped off.
"Na, na, mem, there's nae risk o' that; this is no ane o' yer creepy caves whaur otters an wullcats hae their habitations; it's a muckle open mou'd place, like them 'at prays intill 't as toom an' clear sidit as a tongueless bell. A body wad think ye had an ill thoucht i' yer heid eh, mem?" The suggestion was followed by a low, almost sneering laugh.
So, for the next few days, the hunter was busily engaged in setting traps for bears, beavers, otters, minks, and muskrats; and thus the spring hunt went steadily on while the Goose Moon waned and then disappeared, and in its place the Frog Moon shone. One sunny morning, while I was strolling along the beach, I heard the sound of distant drumming, and presently a youthful voice broke into song.
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