e
dawn was silvering the grey, silent pool where the lonely salmon guarded
the "redd" and waited in vain for the return of her absent mate.

Brighteye took to heart his own escape from death, and for several
nights moped and pined, ate little, and frequented only a part of the
river-bank in proximity to his burrow. As soon, however, as the tiny
scars on his leg were healed, he ventured again to the river; and for a
period danger seldom threatened him. While he was unceasingly vigilant,
and always ready to seek with utmost haste the safety of his home, a new
desire to take precautions against the probability of attack possessed
him. When, at dusk, he stole out from the upper entrance of his
dwelling, he crouched on the grassy ledge at the river's brim and peered
into the little bay below. If nothing stirred between the salmon "hover"
and the bank, he dropped quietly into the pool, inhaled a long, deep
breath, dived beneath the willow-roots, and watched, through the clear
depths, each moving fish or swaying stem of river-weed within the range
of his vision. But not till, after several visits to his water-entrance,
he was perfectly convinced of the absence of danger, did he dare to
brave the passage of the pool.

The water-entrance to the vole's burrow was situated about a foot below
the summer level of the river, and in a kind of buttress of gravel and
soil, which, at its base, sloped abruptly inwards like an arch. This
buttress jutted out at the lower corner of a little horse-shoe bay; and
hereabouts, during summer, a shoal of minnows had often played,
following each other in and out of every nook and cranny beneath the
bank, or floating up and flashing in sun-flecked ripples faintly stirred
by a breeze that wandered lightly from across the stream.

Ordinarily, Brighteye found that the hole in the perpendicular bank
served its purpose well; at the slightest disturbance he could escape
thither, and, safe from pursuit, climb the irregular stairway to the
hollow chamber above high-water mark. But it was different in times of
flood. If he had to flee from the big trout, or from the otter, when the
stream rushed madly past his open doorway, he found that an interval,
which, however brief, was sufficient to imperil his life, must
necessarily elapse before he could secure a foothold in his doorway and
lift himself into the dark recess beyond.

[Illustration: "THE BIG TROUT, IN HIS TORPEDO-LIKE RUSH TO CUT OFF
BRIGHTEYE FROM