And in the end must pay the price.

 

              Little Joe Otter¹.

 

Little Joe Otter took the two young Otters² over to the log where he had found the trap and showed it to them. It looked so harmless that it was difficult for the young Otters to believe that it was such a terrible thing as their father said it was. Then he took them over to the foot of the slippery slide, and while they swam about at a safe distance he looked carefully until he found a trap right at the bottom of the slippery slide. He showed it to them.

 

“Now you see why I said you mustn’t go down the slippery slide even once,” said he. “I didn’t know that this trap was here, but I suspected it. I suspect that there are traps in the other places I have warned you to keep away from. If you want to live long and be happy, don’t once forget the warnings your mother and I have given you.”

 

The young Otters promised they wouldn’t forget, and then the whole family went fishing. Of course, they didn’t go fishing together. They separated, each one fishing in a different place. All the time she was looking for a trout³, the smallest Otter kept thinking about those traps. She made up her mind that nothing would tempt⁴ her to be heedless of the warnings she had been given. You see, she had not forgotten the lesson she had learned when Yowler the Bobcat had caught her because of her heedless wilfulness⁵.

 

But her brother had had no such lesson, and as he hunted for trout he smiled to himself at what he thought were the foolish fears of his parents. “Father and mother are just trying to scare us,” said he. “I don’t believe there is anything to be afraid of as long as that dreadful two-legged creature isn’t about. Those traps look perfectly⁶ harmless to me. I’m not afraid of them. I guess if I use my eyes and my nose I can find them without getting into one of them. I wonder where all the fish have gone to. My, I’m hungry! I believe I’ll go farther up the

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