Fish don't attain the size of whales in mountain
ponds."
There was a silence. After an interval I said:
"Brown, I don't know what to make of that thing."
"Is it coming any nearer?"
"Yes."
"What does it look like now?"
"It _looks_ like a fish. But it can't be. It looks like a tiny, silver
minnow. But it can't be. Why, if it resembles a minnow in size at this
distance--what can be its actual dimensions?"
"Let me look," he said.
Unwillingly I raised my head from the mask and yielded him my place.
A long silence followed. The western mountain-tops reddened under the
rising sun; the sky grew faintly bluer. Yet, there was not a bird-note in
that still place, not a flash of wings, nothing stirring.
Here and there along the lake shore I noticed unusual-looking trees--very
odd-looking trees indeed, for their trunks seemed bleached and dead, and
as though no bark covered them, yet every stark limb was covered with
foliage--a thick foliage so dark in colour that it seemed black to me.
I glanced at my motionless companion where he knelt with his face in the
mask, then I unslung my field-glasses and focussed them on the nearest of
the curious trees.
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