“That is so!” said the other rays, the older and more experienced ones. “At least one or two will get across. That will be the end of our friend, the man! Suppose we go and have a talk with him!”
For the first time they now went over to where the man was lying. They had been too busy up to then to think of him.
The man had lost a great deal of blood, and was still lying on the ground; but he was able to sit up enough to talk. The rays told him how they had been defending the ford against the panthers who had been trying to eat him. The man could hardly keep in his tears as he thought of the friendship these fishes had for him. He thanked them by reaching out his hand and stroking the nearest ones on the nose. But then he moaned:
“Alas! You cannot save me! When the panthers come back there will be many of them; and if they want to get across they can.”
“No they can’t,” said a little ray. “No they can’t! Nobody but a friend of ours can cross this ford!”
“I’m afraid they will be too much for you,” said the man sadly. After a moment’s thought he added:
“There might be one way to stop them. If there were someone to go and get my rifle ... I have a Winchester, with a box of bullets ... but the only friends I have near here are fish ... and fish can’t bring me a rifle!”
“Well...?” asked the rays anxiously.
“Yes ... yes ...” said the man, rubbing his forehead with his right hand, as though trying to collect his thoughts. “Let’s see.... Once I had a friend, a river hog, whom I tamed and kept in my house to play with my children. One day he got homesick and went back to the woods to live. I don’t know what became of him ... but I think he came to this neighborhood!”
The rays gave one great shout of joy: