CHAPTER XV
LITTLE WHITE FOX GOES FISHING
Little White Fox was hungry again. It would seem that a little white fox is hungry most of the time. He went wandering all over the tundra, looking for something to eat. At last he came to the bank of the river. He was sniffing about there when he spied a door right in the ground near the ice roof of the river. "Hello!" said he, stopping short, "I wonder who made that door in there." He looked into the door but could see no one. It was too dark. He shouted into the door, but no one answered. He crept part way down the stairway. Then he stopped and listened. He heard nothing, so he ventured on, and almost before he knew it, he found himself in one of the biggest caves he had ever seen. It was as wide as half the river and as long as he could see in each direction. It had an ice roof and a good solid floor. Only the floor stopped pretty soon, and then there was water.
"I don't believe anybody in the world could build a house like this!" said Little White Fox. "I guess it just happened to be here, and some one has discovered it. I wonder who it could be?"
He walked down close to where the water was, and there he found tracks. Oh! hundreds and hundreds of them! But he could not tell whose tracks they were. He had never seen such tracks before.
"Anyway, I believe there is something good to eat in that water," he said to himself. "If there wasn't, that fellow wouldn't come down here and stand around so much. It is nice and warm down here out of the wind, and I guess I'll stand around a little myself and see what will happen."
Meanwhile, down below in the river, two of the little river people were having a talk all by themselves. They were Unfortunate Flounder and Mr. Salmon Trout. Salmon Trout is a very graceful fellow who always holds himself erect in the water. When he swims, he goes so swiftly that you can hardly see him. But Unfortunate Flounder goes floating around on one side all the time, and looks more like a dead leaf than any member of the fish family.
"Why do you not stand straight up in the water as I do?" said Salmon Trout.
"Well," said Unfortunate Flounder, "it's only a little my fault. Can't you see that my eyes are on one of my flat sides and my stomach on the other? It wouldn't be very pleasant to go about looking one way and going another, would it? When I was going south, I'd be looking west; don't you see?"
"How does it happen that you are that way?"
"I was born that way. All my children are the same, and so were my parents before me. You see, it's really a matter of ancestry. Way back somewhere, one of my great grandparents found out it was easier to lop around sidewise in the water than to stand straight up as you do, so he lopped around all his life long. His son followed his example and lopped around a little worse. So it went on, until to-day we could not straighten up if we were to try. At least, it would take whole generations before we could balance ourselves as well as you do. As for me, I don't see as it matters much, for, after all, I quite agree with my great grandfather that it is best to be comfortable, even if it does make you ugly, ungraceful, and slow."
But just then Unfortunate Flounder learned what an unhappy thing it was to be slow. Little White Fox from his station on the bank had been watching, watching very sharply two dark spots that had appeared in the water. He had watched them come closer and closer. At last he thought he could reach out and grab one of them without getting in the water.
"Look out!" cried Salmon Trout, as he glided swiftly away. But poor Unfortunate Flounder was too slow, and he felt Little White Fox's sharp teeth close down on him.
Just then something happened. "Here! what are you doing in my fishing house?" demanded an angry voice. It frightened Little White Fox so badly that he dropped Unfortunate Flounder back into the river and looked around.
It was Mr. Golden Marten, and this was his fishing house. At least, he called it his, for he had made the stairway down to it. It took Little White Fox only a moment to discover that while Golden Marten was not quite as large as he was, his teeth were very sharp. The door to the stairway was quite close to him, and before Golden Marten could stop him Little White Fox was out of the door and racing for home as fast as his little legs could carry him.
"All the same," he said to his mother that night, after he had told her of the cave, "when I am as old as you are, I am going to have a fish house all my own!"