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BETWEEN banks heavily draped with long, flat slough-grass and overshadowed by lambent-leafed cottonwoods, the greenish waters of the slow-moving creek seemed utterly devoid of life. The Kansas sun poured a flare of somnolent heat directly upon the flaccid bosom of the lazy stream, intensifying the shadows behind the fringe of dry grass and making of them the only cool, damp retreat in the whole region. There was no wind; and scarcely a ripple where the tips of the rank, overhanging growth cut the water with an almost inaudible gurgle.
Close above the water, and close-led by his sharp-lined shadow, hovered a silent snake doctor intently studying the sluggish current in search of any infinitesimal morsel of food that might be drifting there. His bright-blue, black-banded wings of delicate gauze threw him into sharp contrast with the rest of the drab picture.
But in the black shadows along the soggy banks, and below the murky glaze on the surface of the water, life teemed in its mysteries and its myriad forms, giving the lie to outward appearance.
A repulsively incongruous alligator turtle, of impregnable size and armoring, watched with evil intent the slow but gradual approach of a school of brilliant-hued sunfish. King of the creek was he, with his spiked coat and horn-crested helmet. He feared no denizen of his world, and but for his massive clumsiness he would soon have cleared it of all life but his kind, for nature had created him almost invulnerable but had also placed restraint upon his voraciousness.
In a world where one life exists by preying upon another, this paradox must ever be true: each inhabitant must, have some protection to prevent entire extinction, and each must have some special dispensation by which he may subsist through breaking down the protective barriers of the others.
However, beneath the edge of a tangle of drift, in the deepest part of the torpid stream, yet another pair of glassy eyes watched with cannibalistic intentions: watched for an opportunity to prey upon some weaker member of his watery domain; watched for a lowering of the barriers; a big catfish, with bristling whiskers and slowly gaping mouth, seeming fairly a part of the snarl of roots and twigs in which he was ambushed. The sharp spines on either side of his massive head were ready for instant defense, or for slaughter.
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