As for the young Otter, never was there one more meek. She had had a lesson she would never forget. She smarted and ached, but she knew that she deserved it. She knew that it was wholly because of her wilfulness and disobedience.
“I’ll never, never disobey again,” she kept saying over and over to herself. “I’ll never, never disobey again. I guess I don’t know as much about the Great World as I thought I did. Ouch! That fellow’s teeth and claws were sharp. I—I—I wish I hadn’t thought myself so smart. I wonder who that fellow is, anyway.”
Before this she had been too busy to even wonder who she had been fighting with. But now she wanted to know who this enemy was. And so at the first chance she asked her mother.
“That was Yowler the Bobcat,” replied her mother. “He is the greatest sneak in the Green Forest. He wouldn’t have dared to touch your father or me. I wish we had been in time to catch him. There are a lot of people who would have been thankful to us if we had.”
CHAPTER XXI
A RACE FOR LIFE
When life’s at stake ’tis no disgrace
To run from what you dare not face.
Little Joe Otter.
Little Joe Otter and his family had traveled many miles from the Laughing Brook on their way to that other brook where Little Joe was sure they would find better fishing. They had left a deep trail through the snow. It happened that this trail was found by an old trapper, who was tramping through the woods.
“Traveling Otter!” he exclaimed, as soon as he saw that trail. Then he examined the trail very carefully. “More than one has been along here,” he decided. “What is more, those Otters are not very far ahead of me. This trail is very fresh. They’re heading straight for the pond just beyond the next ridge. Otter fur brings high prices these days. If I can catch up with them, I may be able to get a skin or two.”