THE OTTERS MOVE ON
Who doth the law of safety heed
Will not be influenced by greed.
_Little Joe Otter._
The young Otter, who had left a toe behind in a trap, was so happy to be
free again that he hardly gave the loss of that toe a thought. The cold
water was good for the sore foot, and as the young Otter was healthy,
his foot healed rapidly. In fact, in two or three days his foot was
practically well. But the young Otter didn’t forget his dreadful
experience. He never would forget it. He had learned a lesson that he
would remember as long as he lived. All his life he would be suspicious
of traps and on the watch for them. Never again would that young Otter
be caught in a trap.
Of course, the trapper found that toe in his trap. Such a disappointed
trapper as he was! “There won’t be a chance of catching that Otter
again,” said he. “I must have been careless in setting that trap. It
should have caught him by the whole foot and not just by a toe. Probably
those other Otters know all about it now.”
When he discovered the new slippery slide he knew that his traps at the
old slippery slide had been found. He set another trap at the foot of
the new slide, but he didn’t have much hope of catching any one in it.
He understood perfectly that Little Joe Otter and Mrs. Joe were wise in
the ways of trappers. “I guess,” muttered the trapper, “that my best
chance of getting one of those Otters will be to hide for a chance to
shoot one of them. To-morrow I’ll spend the day over here with my gun.”
So he spent all the next day hidden near the slippery slide, watching
with his terrible gun. But he didn’t have a chance to use it. He didn’t
get so much as a glimpse of a sleek, brown head. And the reason was that
Little Joe Otter and his family were far away down the brook. They had
started early the night before. They were on their way down to the Big
River.
Little Joe and Mrs. Joe had talked the matter all over. “It isn’t safe
to stay here any longer,” declared Little Joe. “I don’t like to leave
the good fishing, for we may not find another place where it is so easy
to get plenty of fish. But that terrible two-legged creature will give
us no peace. There is a trap now at the foot of our new slippery slide.”
“You are quite right, my dear,” replied Mrs. Otter. “I am worried to
death for fear, in spite of all their watchfulness, one of the children
will get caught in a terrible trap and be killed. I think the sooner we
move along the better. Safety is the most important thing.”
So once more Little Joe and his family went traveling. There was a crust
on the snow now, and they had a lot of fun sliding. Moreover, they
didn’t leave a trail as when they had left the Laughing Brook in the
soft snow. They followed the big brook on its way towards the Big River.
Now and then they came to open places where the water was swift and
hadn’t frozen. There they stopped to fish. Sometimes they swam for quite
a distance under the ice.