o fast under water that few fish ever
escaped him, once he got after them.

"This summer, however, things were different at Long Pond. Hitherto it
had fairly swarmed with fish--lake trout, suckers, chub, red fins, and
so on. But that spring some scoundrel had dynamited the waters for the
sake of the big lake trout. Few fish had survived the outrage. And
even so clever a fisherman as Dagger Bill would have gone hungry most
of the time had he not been clever enough to vary his bill of fare.

"'If we can't have all the bread we want,' he said to the family, 'we
must try to get along on cake!'"

"Dagger Bill _might_ get _bread_ from some camp," interrupted the Babe
thoughtfully, being a matter-of-fact child. "But _what_ could he know
about _cake_, Uncle Andy?"

"Oh, come on! You know what I mean!" protested Uncle Andy, aggrieved
at the Babe's lack of a sense of humor. "You're too particular, you
are! _You_ know bread meant fish with Dagger Bill--and cake meant
things like winkles and frogs, and watermice, and--Water Babies, of
course!

"Well, you know, it was no joke hunting the Water Babies, for the old
muskrats could fight, and would, and did! And after Dagger Bill and
his family had breakfasted on two or three Water Babies, there was
great excitement in all the muskrat homes.

"Dagger Bill was a new enemy, and they were not quite sure how to
manage him. The mink they knew, the fox they knew, and the noiseless,
terrible eagle owl, and the swooping hawk. All these they had their
tricks for evading. And the savage pike they would sometimes fight in
his own element.

"But Dagger Bill, swimming under water like a fish, and spearing them
from beneath with the deadly javelin of his beak, this was a new and
dreadfully upsetting danger. Furry heads got close together, and there
was a terrible lot of squeaking and squealing before anyone could make
up his mind what to do. And meanwhile Dagger Bill was feeling quite
pleased, because he had found out that Water Babies were good--and
safe!--to eat.

"Now the Water Babies, I must tell you, had two nests--one in the
waterhouse, a few yards out from shore, and one at the end of the
burrow leading up into the dry bank. Their favorite amusement, as a
rule, was playing tag in the quiet water around the house, sometimes on
the surface, sometimes beneath it. They would catch and nip each other
by the tails or the hind legs, and sometimes grapple and drag each
other