nting me, this keenness of Quoskh only whetted my
appetite to know more about him, and especially to watch him, close at
hand, at his fishing. Near the head of the little bay, where frogs were
plenty, I built a screen of boughs under the low thick branches of a
spruce tree, and went away to watch other wood folk.

Next morning he did not come back; nor were there any fresh tracks of
his on the shore. This was my first intimation that Quoskh knows well
the rule of good fishermen, and does not harry a pool or a place too
frequently, however good the fishing. The third morning he came back;
and again the sixth evening; and then the ninth morning, alternating
with great regularity as long as I kept tabs on him. At other times I
would stumble upon him far afield, fishing in other lakes and streams;
or see him winging homeward, high over the woods, from waters far beyond
my ken; but these appearances were too irregular to count in a theory. I
have no doubt, however, that he fished the near-by waters with as great
regularity as he fished the beaver pond, and went wider afield only when
he wanted a bit of variety, or bigger frogs, as all fishermen do; or
when he had poor luck in satisfying the clamorous appetite of his
growing brood.

It was on the sixth afternoon that I had the best chance of studying his
queer ways of fishing. I was sitting in my little blind at the beaver
pond, waiting for a deer, when Quoskh came striding along the shore. He
would swing his weather-vane head till he saw a frog ahead, then stalk
him slowly, deliberately, with immense caution; as if he knew as well as
I how watchful the frogs are at his approach, and how quickly they dive
headlong for cover at the first glint of his stilt-like legs. Nearer and
nearer he would glide, standing motionless as a gray root when he
thought his game was watching him; then on again more cautiously,
bending far forward and drawing his neck back to the angle of greatest
speed and power for a blow. A quick start, a thrust like lightning--then
you would see him shake his frog savagely, beat it upon the nearest
stone or root, glide to a tuft of grass, hide his catch cunningly, and
go on unincumbered for the next stalk, his weather-vane swinging,
swinging in the ceaseless search for frogs, or possible enemies.

If the swirl of a fish among the sedges caught his keen eye, he would
change his tactics, letting his game come to him instead of stalking it,
as he did with the f