Yet such grim occurrences as this were rare. We were peaceful and prosperous, as I have told, increasing steadily in numbers. Because there were assembled together so many, all in helpful comradeship with each other, there came a greater knowingness and there was devised much of what was new. The potters made finer jars and all sorts of earthen vessels; the women contrived a way of weaving a sort of cloth from the fibre of plants, though as yet they could not do it very well; the hunters invented new and better snares, the flint chippers made more effective weapons for them; our fields were better tilled, and our little herds were better tended. It was the close companionship in such numbers which led toward our greatness. And so the full days passed. It was a little after summer and the leaves in the forest were already turning slowly from green to brown or brilliant red or yellow. It was on one of the brightest of the autumn afternoons that I thought to go fishing with hook and line, taking my bow along in the hope that I might find ducks or geese about the marsh, for I had it in mind to fish near the farther shore. It was well that I did so, as far as that day went. Of all the animals we sought to capture or kill because of the richness or beauty of their fur there was none to equal the otter. An otter skin was deemed a greater prize than that of bear or wolf or lynx or beaver, and he was counted fortunate who owned one. Very few of such skins were ours, however, for so silent and elusive, so wary and crafty, and swift either on or under the water was the otter, that it was hard to trap or kill one of them. Not a fisherman or hunter in the tribe but had hunted them with all his art, and not many had been successful, though there existed and thrived numbers of them, great prizes, in and about the shore. On the afternoon of which I tell I rowed to near where the deep water shallowed into the vast marsh, in which were broad pools connected with the lake by narrow streams of little depth. I was sitting idly and motionless in the boat with my line in the water when, suddenly, two tawny pointed noses followed by dark bodies rose to the surface. I did not move so much as an eyelid. So motionless was I that the creatures did not recognize me as a living object. It seemed to me that I must be trembling visibly in my eagerness and vague hope, but I did not stir.