Wood-folk comedies

by William J. Long

That trick is simple enough, but few besides Keeonekh have mastered it. When he is far from an opening and must have fresh air, he presses up against the under surface of the ice and slowly expels his breath, which forms a great bubble around his nose. He leaves it there a moment, till it is purified by contact with water on one side and ice on the other; then he takes it back into his lungs and goes on refreshed. He may reach an opening on the next tack, where you hear him blow out his breath with a long wheeeef of satisfaction; if not, he rises against the ice once more and repeats his extraordinary performance.

An otter travels widely in winter, following a definite circuit and returning at fairly regular intervals. The circuit may be a dozen miles in diameter, much wider than a deer’s, but not so wide as a wolf’s, and he covers it by his own trails from lake to lake. These commonly follow direct lines, reaching their objective by the easiest route; but if there is a bit of open water on the way, Keeonekh must turn aside for a splash in it; or if there is a steep hill or bank anywhere near, he will climb up one side for the sake of sliding down the other. Even on level ground he proceeds in merry fashion, taking two or three swift jumps and throwing himself forward for a slide on his belly. Part of his traveling seems to be done in mere enjoyment of change, of motion, of seeing the country; another part is intended to keep him acquainted with places where the best fish are wintering. With that difficult matter he is enviably familiar; if ever you find where an otter fishes regularly, you may confidently drop your minnow there.

Keeonekh is a dainty feeder, and uncommonly notional for a beast. He will pass by a score of watery chub if he knows where to expect a fat trout; he will ignore suckers for a white perch, or a coarse-fleshed bass for a sweet eel. He will not touch any fish a second time, though he may have left the greater part of it; and he will not look at a dead fish or at bait or carrion of any kind. Only a fresh fish, a living fish, appeals to him, and he may catch this by stealth or in whirlwind fashion, according to circumstance or his mood of the moment.

Sometimes his approach is so shadowy, so arrow-like, that a somnolent trout is gripped before he is aware that danger is near. Again, a fish darts away in alarm, and Keeonekh follows with silent, powerful thrusts of his webbed forefeet, swinging his body left or right by aid of his muscular tail as a rudder. So he follows every turn of his prey, and catches it at last by sheer skill and endurance. He is a wonderful fisherman, only Hukweem the loon comparing with him in this respect; and the loon is inferior in that he chases little fish, while Keeonekh always picks a big one. When you find the remnant of his feeding, one of your surprises may be this: you have fished the same lake or stream, using your best skill and most delicate tackle; but the head and tail which Keeonekh leaves behind him bespeak a better fish than ever you saw caught here.

All that is simple enough in summer, when waters are open and flooded with light; but when a blanket of ice covers the lake an otter must be more alert, keener of eye and quicker of snap, if he is to keep in good condition by what he catches. The fish are now in hidden places, deep and inconvenient; they eat little or nothing, and they lie so quiet in the underwater gloom that one must be very near to distinguish them from other shadows. Then, when Keeonekh catches a fish under the ice, he cannot breathe from an air bubble, as he does when he is free, because the slippery thing in his mouth interferes with the delicate performance. Neither can he dispose of his fish where he is, but must get it quickly to the nearest air hole. Even there he cannot or will not eat in the water, but invariably takes his catch out on the ice, where he leaves record of his feeding in the shape of bones or scales or, it may be, a pound or two of excellent fish, since he often catches a bigger one than he can eat. When you find such signs, be sure there is good angling nearby. An otter never carries a fish beyond the spot where he lands it.

Keeonekh does most of his winter fishing in half-open streams, where it is easy to bring his catch out on the bank, and where he has hidden dining rooms under shelves of ice left by falling water. For lake fishing he uses a spring-hole or the open mouth of a brook; and should you see him enter such a place, you may confidently look for him to come out again, unless he happened to see you first. If not alarmed, he makes a swift circuit of the fishing grounds, and presently you see his glistening head shoot up in the opening. The next instant he is out on the ice, humping his back over his catch, and sometimes mewing to himself in a pleased kind of way. If he finds nothing in his rapid search, you may know it by his wheeeef! as his head appears; for he cannot whistle like that while his mouth is full. Then he will either wait awhile by the opening and try again, or else hurry away to another fishing ground.

If the lake be small and frozen solidly from shore to shore, Keeonekh passes over it indifferently; it may hold many good fish, but there is no way for him to enter and catch them. Should the ice have a single opening, such as one often finds at the inlet of a lake, you may have a puzzling question to answer when you see an otter go into it, and wait hour after hour without seeing him come out again.

Once, when I first began to follow the winter trails, I saw an animal swim rapidly across a pool of open water and disappear under the ice. He was too far away to name him with certainty; but the electric motion, the broad head without visible ears, the following bits of fur with a handbreadth of water showing between back and tail,—all these proclaimed an otter, because no other creature swims in just that way. He had not seen me; I was luckily quiet when he passed, and the breeze was in my favor. Very confidently I watched for him to reappear, thinking I would take his fine skin back to camp. I knew the pond well; it had no other opening, and the inlet was frozen for a mile or more above the spring-hole. Of a surety, therefore, my game must show itself again, since no animal can live for any length of time under the ice.

Ten minutes ran away, while I marveled at an otter’s power of holding his breath. An hour passed, a time of increasing bewilderment, and no life stirred in the black water, which glimmered like a pool of ink in its setting of ice and snow. The afternoon went to join all other wasted afternoons; I began to doubt what I had seen, until I crossed the inlet and found Keeonekh’s trail under the shore, which made me hide and watch once more. Evening came; owls hooted in the woods; a storm wind began to moan, and still no otter. When it grew too dark to see anything clearly I went home.

Two or three inches of snow fell that night. At daybreak I was back at the inlet, and there were the fresh tracks of my otter,—leisurely, exasperating tracks, which emerged from the spring-hole as if there were no call to hurry, and headed down the pond on a journey of which I never found the end. He had come out, just as I expected; but where had he been?