That is why small frogs are so deadly afraid if you take them outside the fringe of lily pads.  They know that big hungry trout feed in from the deeps, and that big frogs, savage cannibals every one, watch out from the shadowy fringe of water plants.  If you drop a little frog there, in clear water, he will shoot in as fast as his frightened legs will drive him, swimming first on top to avoid fish, diving deep as he reaches the pads to avoid his hungry relatives; and so in to shallow water and thick stems, where he can dodge about and the big frogs cannot follow.

All sorts and conditions of frogs lived in that little bay.  There was one inquisitive fellow, who always came out of the pads and swam as near as he could get whenever I appeared on the shore.  Another would sit in his favorite spot, under a stranded log, and let me come as close as I would; but the moment I dangled the red ibis fly in front of him, he would disappear like a wink, and not show himself again.  Another would follow the fly in a wild kangaroo dance over the lily pads, going round and round the canoe as if bewitched, and would do his best to climb in after the bit of color when I pulled it up slowly over the bark.  He afforded me so much good fun that I could not eat him; though I always stopped to give him another dance, whenever I went fishing for other frogs just like him.  Further along shore lived another, a perfect savage, so wild that I could never catch him, which strangled or drowned two big frogs in a week, to my certain knowledge.  And then, one night when I was trying to find my canoe which I had lost in the darkness, I came upon a frog migration, dozens and dozens of them, all hopping briskly in the same direction.  They had left the stream, driven by some strange instinct, just like rats or squirrels, and were going through the woods to the unknown destination that beckoned them so strongly that they could not but follow.

The most curious and interesting bit of their strange life came out at night, when they were fascinated by my light.  I used sometimes to set a candle on a piece of board for a float, and place it in the water close to shore, where the ripples would set it dancing gently.  Then I would place a little screen of bark at the shore end of the float, and sit down behind it in darkness.

[Illustration:  Chigwooltz]

Presently two points of light would begin to shine, then to scintillate, out among the lily pads, and Chigwooltz would come stealing in, his eyes growing bigger and brighter with wonder.  He would place his forearms akimbo on the edge of the float, and lift himself up a bit, like a little old man, and stare steadfastly at the light.  And there he would stay as long as I let him, just staring and blinking.

Soon two other points of light would come stealing in from the other side, and another frog would set his elbows on the float and stare hard across at the first-comer.  And then two more shining points, and two more, till twelve or fifteen frogs were gathered about my beacon, as thick as they could find elbow room on the float, all staring and blinking like so many strange water owls come up from the bottom to debate weighty things, with a little flickering will-o’-the-wisp nodding grave assent in the midst of them.  But never a word was spoken; the silence was perfect.