CHAPTER XII
THE LONG TRAIL
It was 'betwixt the lights,' as he would have said, when the miller closed the door quietly behind him and made his way among the nut-bushes to the ford where his search for the otter usually began. No track marked the ground by the water's edge, nor was there a sign on any of the likely spots all the way to the stranded alder, where he sat to rest awhile before resuming his beat. The pine-tops were then aglow and the birds in full song, but they meant nothing to him in the mood he was in; his thoughts, as his words showed, were all for the otter.
'Not a trace. Pools full of fish, too, and everythin' as keenly as can be. Yet I'm sure he's up, and sartin he'll be spurred afore the day's much older. Wonder who'll be the lucky man?'
At the thought of his rivals he sprang to his feet and soon had reached the precipitous bank above the shelving strand where, though so many landing-places were undisturbed, he had every
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