blurted out "Why?" The moment he had spoken he knew it was a fool
question to ask, and he flushed. But to his grateful relief Uncle did
not seem to hear.

"A hunter from the city came that way. He had a good eye, a repeating
rifle, and no imagination whatever. With the luck that sometimes comes
to those fellows, he was sitting under a tree near the bank, staring
across at the otter-slide (which did not mean anything whatever or
suggest anything to him, but was merely a strip of bare clay), when the
otter family came to slide. The father started down. It was most
interesting--so the stranger under the tree, who was as spry as a
sparrowhawk, shot instantly; and the otter came down in a crumpled
heap. The mother might have escaped; but for just one second she
hesitated, glancing round to see if her little ones were out of danger.
That second was enough for the smart shot across the water. She
dropped. It was good shooting, of course. The two little ones,
horrified by the spiteful noise, and quite unable to understand what
had happened, shrank away into some thick bushes and lay very still,
waiting for their mother to come and tell them the danger was past."

"And she could never come!" murmured the Babe thoughtfully.

"Well, she didn't," snorted Uncle Andy, the discourager of sentiment.
Fairly reeking with sentiment himself, at heart, he disliked all
manifestation of it in himself or others. He liked it left to the
imagination. "They never stirred for an hour or more," he went on.
"Then at last they stole out and began looking everywhere for those
lost parents. All about the slide they hunted--among the bushes at the
top, in the water and the rushes at the bottom--but they found nothing.
For the man had come in his canoe and carried off his victims.