He was still living in the brook and had come to be almost four inches in length when he had an experience that shook his nerves somewhat. As he was resting beside a sod a little worm, all bent out of shape, but undeniably of the vermes family, came floating down the stream and he promptly grabbed it. Then came a sharp prick in his lip and something was pulling him out from under the sod. He braced and twisted and threshed about, but all in vain. Up he went out of the water, all the time doing fancy somersaults such as he had never attempted before. A moment later he struck the water with a splash and was soon safely hidden under the sod again. From his hiding-place he watched that worm come floating past him again and yet again, but he had learned caution. Now that he looked closely, he saw that the worm was fastened to the end of a string, and a little later he discovered that this string was tied to a stick which was in the possession of some creature that walked along the bank of the stream. Later on he learned that this strange animal was a small boy and that all members of this species were his enemies. Whether or not he ever realized that he owed his life to the fact that the boy had lost the last of his store hooks and was using a bent pin that day, no one knows. All that summer the Bully lived in the brook; but when the days grew shorter and it began to freeze he moved with his friends into the river. That winter, when the river was frozen over except in shallow places where the current was swift, he had a narrow escape from a mink. He was talking with a trout much older and larger than himself about the comparative merits of worms and flies as food when a dark form darted towards them with open jaws, and, with one snap, his neighbour was captured and carried away. This foray caused great excitement in the trout colony, and the Bully learned for the first time of the existence of rapacious animals frequenting the banks of the river which made their living by capturing unwary trout.