The salmon's family affairs had reached an important stage; and the "redd," furrowed in the gravel by the mated fish, contained thousands of newly deposited eggs. And, as many of the river-folk, from the big trout to the little water-shrew, continually threatened a raid on the spawn, the salmon guarded each approach to the shallows with unremitting vigilance.

An object of ceaseless curiosity to Brighteye was a water-shrew, not more than half the size of the vole, that had come to dwell in the pool, and had tunnelled out a burrow in the bank above the reed-bed.