The sight of the footprints had put fresh life into him; he determined to follow as far as he could.
‘I’m bone-tired, but I’ll see it through if I drop on the track.’
Only a cat could follow where the otters had climbed; so he made his way back to the creek and clambered up the high bank to the wind-swept ridge leading to the cliffs. A forlorn figure the old man looked as he fought his way in the teeth of the gale to the brink of the precipice, only to find the trail end on a slab of rock, from which the spray had washed some of the snow that covered it.
‘It’s all up,’ he said, turning his eyes to the great pile of loose rocks farther along the cliff; ‘they’re gone to clitter. Now, old fool, goest home along.’
After a glance at the sea, on which not a sail or a wing showed, he made his way to the point of the bluff above the mere, and letting himself carefully over the edge, succeeded by clinging to rock and tussock in making the descent without mishap. At the foot he stood awhile to rest; then, presently, set out across the snowfield for the cottage, his thoughts full of the otter, which however he had given up all hope of getting.
So convinced was he that the creatures were in the cliff that he attached no importance to the trail he stumbled on in the midst of the mere, till he came to the spot where the tracks forked; but there he awoke to the significance of the situation.
‘Oh, oh,’ said he, as he checked his steps, ‘so this was where you parted, was it?—one for the reed-bed, t’other for up along, the withies most like.’
After a pause he added with a chuckle, ‘Jack oter, you’re mine yet.’
At the thought of the valuable prize falling to him he was all life and energy again: the vigour of his stride showed it as he stepped along the furrow made by the otter, with eyes fixed on the isolated clump near the inflow through which he expected it would pass. His surprise and excitement may be imagined when on reaching it and ringing it, he found no sign of track on the snow beyond.
‘Niver can be in this morsel of a patch,’ said he under his breath, as he took up a station between it and the reed-bed he felt sure the otter would make for. ‘Yet eh must be, eh must be.’ Then, raising his voice, he called out, ‘King Oter, thy time is come; show thyself and get the business over.’ With that he began to beat the reeds with the gun, trampling the stems as he advanced. In the midst of the clump he came on the couch. He stooped quickly and felt that it was warm. ‘I knawed thee was theere,’ said he; and crack, crack, crack went the reeds as he levelled them with the ground.