for a feast--frogs were the greatest delicacies known to
her, and she had never before found them to be so plentiful. Dawn was
breaking when, in her onward journey, she reached the river; so she
drifted around the bend, dived over the fall, and returned to her home
beneath the alder-roots.

It happened that the otters whose "spur" (footprints) Lutra had followed
to the frog-ponds retraced their steps towards the pool, and in doing so
suddenly discovered that the scent of a man lay strong on the trodden
grass. A villager, knowing the eagerness with which otters seek for
frogs, and that they often cross a narrow neck of land at the bend of a
stream, had for a time kept watch at the lower end of the old farm
garden. He was anxious that the hounds, which, on the previous day, had
arrived at the village, should enjoy good sport during their stay in the
neighbourhood. But he saw nothing of the animals he had come to watch;
as soon as they detected his whereabouts they retreated hastily to the
pond at the upper end of the garden, gained the river, and, like Lutra,
swam homewards around the bend. But, less familiar than Lutra with the
strength of the current, they left the water as they approached the
fall, and crept through the deep shadows of the alder-roots till they
reached a point at some distance beyond the pool.

These events of the night were of the utmost importance to the otters as
connected with the events of the morrow. During the early morning the
villager paid a second visit to the garden, and examined closely the
soft mud at the margin of the ponds. The remains of the otters'
feast--the skins and the eyes of frogs--lay in several places, and, near
the largest of the ponds, the otters' "spur" showed clearly that the
animals had for some time been busy there. Taking a straight course to
the river above the pools, the watcher again detected the marks of the
otters on the sloping bank. By the riverside below the garden, however,
he failed to observe any further sign, and so concluded that the animals
had probably left the water at the opposite bank.

When, later, the Hunt crossed the bridge on its way up-stream, the
villager told his story to the Master, who immediately led his hounds
over the hill-top in the direction of the ponds. This unexpected
movement drew the followers of the Hunt away from the river; they
imagined that the hounds were to be taken across country to a well known
gorge where, during a previou