He became, all at once, a hunter.
With the thinning out of the forest the creek grew more shallow.

It ran again over bars of sand and stones, and Baree began to nose along the edge of the shallows.

For a long time he had no success.

The few crayfish that he saw were exceedingly lively and elusive, and all the clamshells were shut so tight that even Kazan's powerful jaws would have had difficulty in smashing them.

It was almost noon when he caught his first crayfish, about as big as a man's forefinger.