white ice had formed thickly on the river wherever the current
was not too swift for freezing. Then the stream fell, and a shelf
of new black ice formed at the water's level, eighteen inches or
more below the first ice, some of which still clung to the banks,
reaching out in places two or three feet and forming dark caverns
with the ice below. Both shelves dipped towards the water,
forming a gentle incline all about the edges of the open places.

A string of silver bubbles shooting across the black pool at my
feet roused me out of a drowsy weariness. There it was again, a
rippling wave across the pool, which rose to the surface a moment
later in a hundred bubbles, tinkling like tiny bells as they
broke in the keen air. Two or three times I saw it with growing
wonder. Then something stirred under the shelf of ice across the
pool. An otter slid into the water; the rippling wave shot across
again; the bubbles broke at the surface; and I knew that he was
sitting under the white ice below me, not twenty feet away.

A whole family of otters, three or four of them, were fishing
there at my feet in utter unconsciousness. The discovery took my
breath away. Every little while the bubbles would shoot across
from my side, and watching sharply I would see Keeonekh slide out
upon the lower shelf of ice on the other side and crouch there in
the gloom, with back humped against the ice above him, eating his
catch. The fish they caught were all small evidently, for after a
few minutes he would throw himself flat on the ice, slide down
the incline into the water, making no splash or disturbance as he
entered, and the string of bubbles would shoot across to my side
again.