By Howard Angus Kennedy.

Down at the bottom of the river, in a deep, deep hole, there lived a wicked wizard; and one morning very early he was prowling along by the shore, with just the tip of his nose above water, sniff-sniff-sniffing for the scent of anyone good to eat. Now it happened that that morning the teacher had got up very early, and was sitting on a stone by the riverside, trying to think of new story-lessons to tell the children; and the wizard put up his long snaky arm out of the water and caught her by the neck and dragged her down to his cave. Then he tied her hands and feet, and waited for her to drown; but drown she would not. So he thought she must have a Testament in her pocket to act as a charm. The Testament was really in her heart, which was a great deal better. So when he saw she would not drown, he was a little frightened, and offered to let her go if she would give him one of the children instead.

"You wicked wizard," said she, "not one of them shall you have!"

"We shall see about that," said the wizard; and out he went, leaving the teacher tied fast at the bottom of the hole.

Now, when the children came down, they were very much surprised to find no teacher; but they took their morning dip in the river, as she had taught them to do. Just as they were coming out to dry themselves, a great grey fish put his head out of the water and said—"Children, the wizard that lives in the hole has caught your teacher, and he's coming to catch you."

The children jumped out of the water in a great fright. "What shall we do? What shall we do?" they all began to cry.

"Put on your clothes," said the fish, after he had gone down for a moment to breathe.

That was soon done, for they had very few clothes to put on.

"Now get on our backs," said the great grey fish, who had come up this time with nine others as like him as could be. Then the ten fishes humped up their great grey backs, just keeping their heads under water to breathe with and their tails to swim with; and the ten children got on, and the fishes carried them across the big river in a twinkling.

"Now, children," said the chief of the fishes, "strike into the wood as straight as you can go till you come to the old brown bear, and he'll tell you the way to Fruity Hollow, where you'll get your dinner; but don't speak to the grizzly bear, for he's the wizard's son. Then go on till you come to the old grey wolf, and she'll tell you the way to the otters' cave; but don't say a word to the red wolf with the squint, for she's the wizard's daughter."

The fish was quite out of breath when he got to the end of this speech, and disappeared in a hurry.

Then the ten little Indians marched off into the woods, Indian file; and they all kept close together, one behind the other, except the two little boys that sometimes wished they did not have to do what they ought; and they dawdled behind. Pretty soon the children got to where the poplars end and the pinewoods begin, and there they saw the grizzly bear sitting on his haunches beside the path, with his arms folded smugly across his chest and his cruel face trying to smile.

"Welcome, little darlings!" the grizzly bear said, in a voice as sweet as honey. "Would you like me to take you to Fruity Hollow?"

The children shut their mouths tightly, and went straight on, and the grizzly gritted his teeth in disappointment; but when the two bad little Indians came straggling along he sat up again and put on his smirkiest smile and said—

"You poor little dears! What a shame it was for the others to leave you behind! How hungry you must be! Would you like me to show you the way to Fruity Hollow?"

"That I should, indeed!" said one of the boys. And the grizzly bear sprang upon him, and caught him up, and hugged him till the breath was nearly out of his body, and strode off with him; and the other boy ran on as fast as he could to catch up his companions.

Meanwhile the eight little Indians marched steadily on till they came to the old brown bear; and he was so fast asleep they could only wake him by pulling his fur, but they took care to pull it respectfully.

"All right," said the old brown bear in a mumbly voice, "I know what you want. First turning on the right, over the big tree that blew down last winter." Then he went to sleep again before they could say "Thank you, sir."

When they came to a big tree lying with its roots in the air, but with its needles still green, they scrambled over it and followed a winding path down into a narrow valley just full of wild raspberry- and gooseberry- and currant-bushes, and they picked and ate and picked and ate till they could eat no more. Then they made baskets of big leaves and twigs, and filled them with berries for supper, and climbed back over the big tree and trudged along up the path.

Soon afterwards they came upon the squinting red wolf, straddling right across the track.

"Here we are, you sweet little redskins," said she, with a grin two feet long. "The otters have asked me to show you the way to their cave."

The little redskins turned almost white with fear, but they shut their mouths tightly and pushed right on, and the wicked red wolf had to jump out of the way in a hurry, for she did not dare to touch children who remembered and obeyed. Presently the dawdler came up, very hungry and tired—for the brown bear had been much too fast asleep to tell him about Fruity Hollow—and burst out at once, without thinking, "Please can you tell me the way to the otters' cave?" Then the red wolf leapt upon him, and knocked him down, and picked him up by the back of his clothes and carried him off at a trot through the scratching brambles.

Just where the pinewoods end and the poplars begin again, the eight little Indians came upon the old grey wolf, curled up with her nose on her tail; and she put up her head for the children to scratch her neck. "Across the meadow and round the slough," she said when she had been scratched enough; "and down the stony creek."

So when they got to the edge of the wood they struck right across the meadow, wading knee-deep in the long rich grass; and then they found a path leading through another patch of poplar wood to a wide green slough—or "sloo," as they call it in Canada—half-lake and half-swamp; and they trod lightly round the narrow edge till they found the place where the water oozed out into the creek. Down the creek they went, with the stream purring beside their feet like a kitten in the sun, and the mosquitoes humming over their heads, and the silly loose-leaved poplars rustling all around them, wind or no wind.

"Listen!" said the biggest little Indian. And through all the purring and humming and rustling came the long low swishing sound of a big river. Then the eight little pairs of feet climbed out of the creek-bed, and crossed a corner of land till they stood almost on the edge of the river's earthen-cut bank.

There was a bustling and a scurrying under foot, and then a row of furry brown little heads popped up from the edge of the bank. "Come in!" barked all the otters in chorus; and, scrambling down the bank, the children followed the otters into their cave. There was plenty of room, though the door was rather small, and a big bed of prairie hay was spread on the floor.

"We've been expecting you, you see," said the mother otter, when the eight little Indians were squatting on their hunkers and eating berries. "The fishes told us to look out for you about this time."

"Have you made friends with the fishes, then?" asked the biggest boy.

"No, we're not exactly friends, only allies. We hate the wizard more than we hate each other, so we've joined to fight him. But I wish it was all over, so that we could go fishing again. Gophers are dreadfully dry food, and they do burrow in such dusty holes."

After supper the eight little Indians lay down in a row, and all the little otters spread themselves out into a big fur counterpane to keep the children warm. But the big otters sharpened their teeth as soon as it was dark, and swam down and down and down, with fiery eyes, till they came into the River Saskatchewan; and then they swam up and up and up till they came near the wizard's pit; and there they climbed out and hid just under the edge of the bank.

Presently they felt a heavy silent somebody tramping over the grass from the wood, and they knew that the grizzly bear was coming, and one of them slipped down to the water's edge to tell the great grey fishes, who were lying just inside the river.

"Well," said the greatest of the fishes, "what do you want us to do?" For he knew that the otters must take the lead when fighting had to be done.

"You must pretend to be the wizard," said the otter, "and tell the grizzly to come into the river up to his waist. We can fight much better in the water, you know."

So the fish put up his head, and called out, imitating the wizard's voice as well as he could, "Is that you, my son?"

"Of course it's me," grumbled the bear; "and a precious hard run I've had with this little wretch. I'd a good mind to stop on the way and eat him myself."

"Never mind, my dear," said the sham wizard. "I'll pay you well. Just bring him in, will you? The water won't come above your middle."

The grizzly grumbled something about the water being cold, and he thought his father might as well have come ashore; but he waded in, all the same, and the otters dived and swam after him. And when the water was up to his middle the fishes swam in between his legs and nibbled his toes, and hit him hard on the legs with their great tails, and toppled him right over; but still he held on to the boy with one arm, while he clawed savagely at the fishes with the other. Then the otters sprang at his shoulders, and bit right through the fur and the flesh, so that he dropped the boy in the water; and the fishes and otters kept up such a splashing and a jumping and a biting that the bear could not see a foot in front of him, and the boy dashed back to the shore and huddled shivering under the bank.

"Help, help, help!" yelled the grizzly. "They've stolen the boy! They're cutting off my toes! They're tearing off my ears! They're flaying me alive!"

Then the wizard awoke, and leapt out of his hole, and came flying to the rescue, raking the water and the air with his long snaky arms, and screeching horribly. But before he got to where the grizzly was rolling over and over in a whirlpool of mad otters and fishes and foam, he heard the voice of his daughter, the red wolf, who had just arrived and was calling out (as well as she could with a little Indian's clothes in her mouth) to ask what was the matter.

"If I've lost one, I'll make sure of the other," the wizard thought; and he seized the boy from his daughter's mouth and plunged down into the pit, leaving his grizzly son to look after himself.

"We must save the boy!" cried the head otter.

"He's not worth saving," said the fishes; "haven't we done enough for one night?"

The otters did not condescend to answer, but swam hotly after the wizard, and the fishes followed without another word, leaving the grizzly to hobble ashore and lick his wounds.

None of the otters had ever dared to descend the wizard's pit before, and none of the fishes had ever ventured within a hundred feet of its mouth; but now the otters' blood was up, and they dived like a flash, and caught up the wizard before he got to the bottom, and fastened on his heels, and dug their teeth into his calves. The wizard flung himself round and gripped an otter in each hand; but they gnawed his wrists till their teeth met in the sinews, and the rest of the otters swarmed round his neck and cut his head right off.

"The boy is drowned, all the same," said the head fish, who swam bravely down into the pit when he heard the otters' scream of victory.

"Not a bit of it," said the head otter; "it's only his badness that's drowned; the boy will be righter than ever if you hurry ashore with him."

So the fishes pushed him up to the air and rolled him ashore; though it was rather difficult, as he had not the sense to hold on, and they had no arms to hold him by.

Meanwhile the otters had gone down to the very bottom of the pit, and bitten through the teacher's cords; and she kissed their wet foreheads and left her dark prison, and the rising sun flung her a rosy welcome as she stepped out on to dry ground. The squinting wolf shut her eyes and howled, and fled into the wood with her tail between her legs.

The eight little Indians were having a fine romp with the little otters when the big otters came back, tired and wounded, but proud with glorious news. As soon as the story was told, the head otter said—"Now, children, it's time to go home, and the fishes are waiting. No going through the woods this time!"

As he spoke, the fishes humped up their great grey backs, and the children took their seats, and the procession never stopped till it came to the little school-house, where the best of all teachers stood smiling welcomes at the door and two shamefaced little Indians pretended to be very busy at their sums inside.

The procession never stopped till it came to the school-house.