“I’m going in the water once more,” said Mumpy. “I haven’t had enough grass to eat.”
“I haven’t, either,” said Chunky, who was fatter than ever and jollier looking. “I’ll go in with you, Mumpy.”
So the two young hippos walked slowly down to the edge of the deep, muddy river. Far out in the water they could see their father and mother, with the larger animals, having a swim. Chunky and Mumpy walked slowly now, though they could run fast when they needed to, to get away from danger; for though a hippo is fat and seems clumsy, and though his legs are very short, he can, at times, run very fast.
And as they went slowly along, Chunky and Mumpy looked about on all sides of them, and sniffed the air very hard. They were trying to see danger, and also to smell it. In the jungle wild animals can sometimes tell better by smelling when there is danger than by looking. For the tangled vines do not let them see very far among the trees, but there is nothing to stop them from smelling unless the wind blows too hard.
“Is everything all right, Chunky?” asked Mumpy of her brother, as she saw him stop on the edge of a patch of reeds just before going into the water, and sniff the air very hard.
“Yes, I think so,” he answered in hippo talk. For his father and mother had taught him something of how to look for danger and smell for it—the danger of lions or of tigers or of the black or white hunter men who came into the jungle to shoot or catch the wild animals.
“Come on, Mumpy!” called Chunky. “We’ll have another nice swim.”
“And we’ll get some more sweet grass to eat—I’m hungry yet!” replied the little girl hippo; for animals, such as elephants and hippos who live in the jungle or river, need a great deal of food.
Out to the edge of the river went Chunky and his sister. They saw some other young hippos—some mere babies and others quite large boys and girls, as we would say—on the bank or in the water.
Just as Chunky and Mumpy were going to wade in, they noticed, on a high part of the bank, not far away, a fat hippo boy who was called Big Foot by the jungle animals, as one of his feet was larger than the other three.