's edge, followed a small, dark, sinuous creature, its piercing
eyes, bead-black with a glint of red behind them, fixed in savage
curiosity upon the canoemen. It was about two feet in length, with
extremely short legs, and a sharp, triangular head. As it ran--and its
movements were as soundless and effortless as those of a snake--it
humped its long, lithe body in a way that suggested a snake's coils.
It seemed to be following the canoe out of sheer curiosity--a
curiosity, however, which was probably well mixed with malevolence,
seeing that it was the curiosity of a mink. These two strange
creatures moving on the water were, of course, too large and
formidable for the big mink to dream of attacking them; but he could
wonder at them and hate them--and who could say that some chance to do
them a hurt might not arise? Stealthy, wary, and bold, he kept his
distance about eight or ten feet from the canoe; and because he was
behind he imagined himself unseen. As a matter of fact, however, the
steersman of the canoe, wiser in woodcraft and cunninger even than he,
had detected him and was watching him with interest from the corner of
his eye. So large a mink, and one so daring in curiosity, was a
phenomenon to be watched and studied with care. The canoeist did not
take his comrade in the bow into his confidence for some minutes, lest
the sound of the human voice should daunt the animal. But presently,
in a monotonous, rhythmic murmur which carried no alarm to the mink's
ear but only heightened its interest, he called the situation to his
companion's notice; and the latter, without seeming to see, kept watch
through half-closed lids.

A little way down the shore, close to the water's edge, something
round and white caught the mink's eye. Against the soft browns and
dark greys of the wet soil, the object fairly shone in its whiteness,
and seemed absurdly out of place. It was a hen's egg, either dropped
there by a careless hen from the pioneer's cabin near by, or left by a
musk-rat disturbed in his poaching. However it had got there, it was
an egg; and the canoeists saw that they no longer held the mink's
undivided attention. Gently the steersman sheered out a few feet
farther from the bank, and at the same time checked the canoe's
headway. He wanted to see how the mink would manipulate the egg when
he got to it.

The egg lay at the foot of a little path which led down the bushy bank
to the water--a path evidently trodden by the