Where the rowdy brook debouched into a small meadow the old Muskrat sat in the Spring sunshine nibbling his root breakfast. Out of the water under his nose a gray bird emerged with a billful of "wigglers."
"How's fishin' this morning?"
"Good! Caught three hellgramites and a caddis on this trip down stream."
"What's that stone tube in your mouth?"
"That's a caddis castle; fine fat boy inside."
"Um — Say, you're a mystery. How do you manage to fly under water with that light body and you haven't any webs between your toes but you swim?"
"Do it same as a fish or duck — just drive out all air from my body and I'm heavy as a lead sinker."
"Why don't vour feathers get soaked?"
"Can't — keep 'em well oiled."
"Well — you ort to have been a duck. Notice you always follow every bend in the streams. You could save time by cutting the points."
"Yes, and miss a meal."
"That what you're after when you dive into the water while flying?"
"Sure."
"Well, you're a nervy cuss. Not afraid of me at all, even when we meet in one of my dark tunnels?"
"Why should I be? You never eat anything but those old roots and stalks. How you ever get any good out of them is a mystery."
"I'm no more mysterious to you than you are to me. You fly and walk under water just as easily as you do above it and I can't get off the ground."
"Well, I've got to be goin' — I can hear those four Cincluses calling for breakfast — clear down here."
"Good-bye. There's a lot more questions I want to ask you. Call again."
"You're a regular old interrogation mark. See you later."
Mountains of western North America from Rockles to Pacific coast, north to Alaska, south to western Texas and northern Lower California. Resident, even in Alaska.