Over the wooden sleepers he walked, so that the stenches of oil and tar and cinder would mingle with his own scent, in case the enemies were trailing him.
At the next bridge, under which a dwarf owl nested, he left the track and went to water again. Working down the river, crossing from side to side and searching for fish under stones and in deep holes, he left the grassy sloping tide-walls behind and passed by boats resting on a ridge of gravel above a long road-bridge. Swimming with a fluke to the riverside, he could find no bank. The water lapped a stone wall. He swam under an arch of the bridge and ate the fish on a ledge of sand raised over an old galvanized-iron bath thrown away into the river. Below the bridge was a railway bridge, supported by round iron piers sunk into the gravel. A wave washed against the base of the pier near the right side of the river as he swam round it, hoping to find mussels clinging there. The sea was returning again. It poured over the ridges of sand, making a sound with every stone and shell and shillet tumbling before its eager spread. Hu-ee-ic! Tarka chopped at the froth, the new smarting of his wounds unheeded. Hu-ee-ic! The salt wave was of the sea, and the sea was the friend of otters.
As he was swimming down in a turbulent pool, Tarka saw a big fish turn before him. He raced after it. His hind legs pushed forward under his body for the full double-thrust, and the arch of his back opened the big bite of Deadlock that had nearly touched the spine. He bled, but felt no pain in the joy of hunting a big fish. The mullet
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