“Well, where is it?” demanded his sister.
Her brother simply stared all about him with a foolish look on his face. There was no fish there! What could have become of it? He knew that he had killed it and so it couldn’t possibly have flopped back into the water. He ran all around with his nose to the ice, but there was no scent of Reddy Fox or of any one else.
“I don’t believe you caught a big fish,” declared his sister. “You must have dreamed it. If you caught it, where is it?”
CHAPTER XXXII
THE LIVING HEAP OF SNOW
Don’t think, but make quite sure you know
A thing is thus or mayhap so.
Little Joe Otter.
Of all the puzzled people in all the Great World none was more puzzled than was the young Otter whose big fish had disappeared. He had certainly killed that fish, He had even taken two big bites out of the choicest part of it. So he knew that the fish couldn’t have flopped off the ice into the water while he was away. He had been gone only a few minutes, just long enough to get his sister and bring her over to see that big fish. He had boasted that it was bigger than any fish she ever had caught. Now there wasn’t a trace of it anywhere.
His sister tossed her head. “I don’t believe you caught a big fish at all,” said she.
“But I tell you I did,” protested her brother. “I caught him and I left it right here.”