Wherever you find Keeonekh the otter you find three other things:
wildness, beauty, and running water that no winter can freeze.
There is also good fishing, but that will profit you little; for
after Keeonekh has harried a pool it is useless to cast your fly
or minnow there. The largest fish has disappeared--you will find
his bones and a fin or two on the ice or the nearest bank--and
the little fish are still in hiding after their fright.

Conversely, wherever you find the three elements mentioned you
will also find Keeonekh, if your eyes know how to read the signs
aright. Even in places near the towns, where no otter has been
seen for generations, they are still to be found leading their
shy wild life, so familiar with every sight and sound of
danger that no eye of the many that pass by ever sees them. No
animal has been more persistently trapped and hunted for the
valuable fur that he bears; but Keeonekh is hard to catch and
quick to learn. When a family have all been caught or driven away
from a favorite stream, another otter speedily finds the spot in
some of his winter wanderings after better fishing, and, knowing
well from the signs that others of his race have paid the sad
penalty for heedlessness, he settles down there with greater
watchfulness, and enjoys his fisherman's luck.

In the spring he brings a mate to share his rich living. Soon a
family of young otters go a-fishing in the best pools and explore
the stream for miles up and down. But so shy and wild and quick
to hide are they that the trout fishermen who follow the river,
and the ice fishermen who set their tilt-ups in the pond below,
and the children who gather cowslips in the spring have no
suspicion that the original proprietors of the stream are still