Mahug strongly suspected someone of the muskrat family, so he began watching a colony of them which had pitched their huts alongshore. Even at night, especially if it was moonlight, the old King Loon would skim low over the water, uttering scream after scream as he followed the trails of the muskrats swimming about the lake. If Mahug had caught one of them he would have made short work of it, so furious was he. But somehow the muskrats always escaped, for they kept sentinels upon duty, who always slapped their tails upon the water, at which signal the muskrats always vanished. Almost before Mahug had forgotten about the disappearance of the first small loon, another one disappeared. This time Mahug was quite certain that the old bald-headed eagle, which lived far above upon a cliff the other side of the lake, had gone off with it. Now there were several young eaglets up there on the cliff and the old birds foraged for them all day long. They took anything they could find upon the shore, especially if it were young, tender and unprotected. Mahug and the old eagle crossed each other in the air and they had one terrible battle together, but the eagle proved to be more than a match for the loon. The King of the Air had sharp talons and a razor-like beak which tore through the heavy feathers of the loon and bit into his flesh sharply, so at length he had to settle down among the sedges and own himself beaten for once. The summer moon, round and yellow, came peeping over the tops of the tallest spruces upon the summit of Mount Cushman and lighted a broad path right across Black Lake. Out in the centre of the lake the horn-pouts and pickerel were leaping, and over in the shadows on the far shore Mahug, the old loon, screamed and suddenly dived for a fish in the moonlight. All manner of wild things of fur and feathers were stirring. The muskrats were playing, squeaking merrily and chasing each other in and out of their huts and leaving long silvery trails behind them as they swam about. Back in the thickets of rushes dozed one lonely little loon, last of the brood of Mahug. Too young to venture forth upon a moonlight fishing trip, it cuddled down flat, its webbed feet beneath its scantily feathered body, uttering a plaintive little sound whenever it heard the old loons screaming out on the lake. Because of these little lonely cries, the dark, fur-clad stranger who had been feeling its way alongshore, in and out among the tall reeds, paused, erecting its small ears, trying to locate the whereabouts of the sound. Long and lithe of body was the stranger, a full-grown mink. Its dark fur coat mingled well with the shadows, but when a streak of moonlight touched its breast, its pure white breast-plate of fur shone dazzlingly white. The mink's legs were short, so it crouched low along the ground as it crept nearer and nearer the lonely nest among the reeds.