dammed-up deeps, there was
suddenly a rush among the sedges and rushes, followed by a splash, the
lad catching sight of a long, wet, brown body, as the animal made a
plunge and disappeared in deep water.

The next moment his eyes rested upon the remains of a feast, in the
shape of a fine trout, half-eaten, evidently quite freshly caught.

"Better fisherman than I am," said Ralph to himself, as he searched the
surface of the water to see if the otter he had disturbed would rise.
But the cunning animal had reached its hole in the bank, and was not
likely to return to its banquet: so Ralph went on beyond the deeps to
where the river ran shallow again beneath the overhanging trees, just
catching a glimpse at times of the great cliffs, whose tops often
resembled the ruins of neglected towers, so regularly were they laid in
fissured blocks.

Encouraged by his success, though conscious of the fact that it was the
work of a poacher more than an angler, Ralph was not long in finding a
suitable place for driving a few more fish. Fate favoured him in this,
and in their being just of a suitable size for the little pool, and he
had just secured one about six inches long, and was filling his little
can with water, when he was startled by hearing a half-stifled bark
uttered, as if by a dog whose muzzle was being held.

He looked sharply round, and suddenly woke to the fact that, for how
long he could not tell, while he had been stalking the trout, he had
been stalked in turn.

For a man suddenly appeared among the bushes on the right, looked across
the river, and shouted, "Come on, now."

Three more appeared on the other side, one of whom leaped at once into
the river, while simultaneously a couple of dogs were let loose, and
dashed into the shallow water.

"Don't let him go back, lads," shouted the first man. "Run him up: he
can't get away."

Ralph was equal to the occasion. In a sharp glance round, while
snapping his rod in two where the butt was lashed to the thinner part,
he saw that his retreat was cut off down the river, and that his only
chance of escape was to go forward, right and left being sheer wall,
twenty feet on one side, two hundred, at least, on the other. He
grasped, too, the fact that the men about to attack him were evidently
lead-miners, and the thought flashed upon him that he had inadvertently
come higher till, after a fashion, he was occupying Mark Eden's
position, trespassing upon an enemy's gro