to widen
the interval; and again he laughed long and loud, and with more reason
than before. He manoeuvred so cunningly that I could not get within half
a dozen rods of him. Each time, when he came to the surface, turning his
head this way and that, he cooly surveyed the water and the land, and
apparently chose his course so that he might come up where there was the
widest expanse of water and at the greatest distance from the boat. It
was surprising how quickly he made up his mind and put his resolve into
execution. He led me at once to the widest part of the pond, and could
not be driven from it. While he was thinking one thing in his brain,
I was endeavoring to divine his thought in mine. It was a pretty game,
played on the smooth surface of the pond, a man against a loon. Suddenly
your adversary's checker disappears beneath the board, and the problem
is to place yours nearest to where his will appear again. Sometimes he
would come up unexpectedly on the opposite side of me, having
apparently passed directly under the boat. So long-winded was he and so
unweariable, that when he had swum farthest he would immediately plunge
again, nevertheless; and then no wit could divine where in the deep
pond, beneath the smooth surface, he might be speeding his way like a
fish, for he had time and ability to visit the bottom of the pond in
its deepest part. It is said that loons have been caught in the New York
lakes eighty feet beneath the surface, with hooks set for trout--though
Walden is deeper than that. How surprised must the fishes be to see
this ungainly visitor from another sphere speeding his way amid their
schools! Yet he appeared to know his course as surely under water as on
the surface, and swam much faster there. Once or twice I saw a ripple
where he approached the surface, just put his head out to reconnoitre,
and instantly dived again. I found that it was as well for me to rest
on my oars and wait his reappearing as to endeavor to calculate where he
would rise; for again and again, when I was straining my eyes over the
surface one way, I would suddenly be startled by his unearthly laugh
behind me. But why, after displaying so much cunning, did he invariably
betray himself the moment he came up by that loud laugh? Did not his
white breast enough betray him? He was indeed a silly loon, I thought. I
could commonly hear the splash of the water when he came up, and so also
detected him. But after an hour he seemed as fr