“It was the sea-serpent,” said he.
He was so frightened that he grew almost numb; his breath stuck in his throat, and the blood throbbed in his ears.
“Oh, you sillibub!” shouted his brother after him, “it was an otter chasing a salmon-trout. The trout will always leap, when chased.”
He had scarcely spoken when, but a few rods from Anders, appeared the black, shiny head again, this time with the trout in its mouth.
“He has his lair somewhere around here,” said Tharald; “let us watch him, and see where he is going.”
The otter was nearing the shore. He swam rapidly, with a slightly undulating motion of the body, so that, at a distance, he might well have been mistaken for a large water-snake. When he had reached the shore, he dragged the fish up on the sand, spied cautiously about him, to see if he was watched, and again seizing the trout, slid into the underbrush. There was something so delightfully wild and wary about it that the boys felt the hunter’s passion aroused in them, and they could scarcely take the time to fling on their clothes before starting in pursuit. Like Indians, they crept on hands and feet over the mossy ground, bent aside the bushes, and peered cautiously between the leaves.
“Sh—sh—sh! we are on the track,” whispered Tharald, stooping to smell the moss. “He has been here within a minute.”
“Here is a drop of fish-blood,” answered Anders, pointing to a twig, over which the fish had evidently been dragged.
“Serves him right, the rascal,” murmured his elder brother.