"Never mind, my dear," said the sham wizard. "I'll pay you well. Just bring him in, will you? The water won't come above your middle."
The grizzly grumbled something about the water being cold, and he thought his father might as well have come ashore; but he waded in, all the same, and the otters dived and swam after him. And when the water was up to his middle the fishes swam in between his legs and nibbled his toes, and hit him hard on the legs with their great tails, and toppled him right over; but still he held on to the boy with one arm, while he clawed savagely at the fishes with the other. Then the otters sprang at his shoulders, and bit right through the fur and the flesh, so that he dropped the boy in the water; and the fishes and otters kept up such a splashing and a jumping and a biting that the bear could not see a foot in front of him, and the boy dashed back to the shore and huddled shivering under the bank.
"Help, help, help!" yelled the grizzly. "They've stolen the boy! They're cutting off my toes! They're tearing off my ears! They're flaying me alive!"
"Help, help, help!" yelled the grizzly.
Then the wizard awoke, and leapt out of his hole, and came flying to the rescue, raking the water and the air with his long snaky arms, and screeching horribly. But before he got to where the grizzly was rolling over and over in a whirlpool of mad otters and fishes and foam, he heard the voice of his daughter, the red wolf, who had just arrived and was calling out (as well as she could with a little Indian's clothes in her mouth) to ask what was the matter.
"If I've lost one, I'll make sure of the other," the wizard thought; and he seized the boy from his daughter's mouth and plunged down into the pit, leaving his grizzly son to look after himself.
"We must save the boy!" cried the head otter.
"He's not worth saving," said the fishes; "haven't we done enough for one night?"
The otters did not condescend to answer, but swam hotly after the wizard, and the fishes followed without another word, leaving the grizzly to hobble ashore and lick his wounds.