The Preposterous Adventures of Swimmer Read Free Page A

Doc was going to be lost without his trained slave to show to the world, and furious to boot. In a matter of hours, sure as anything, there would be a big otter hunt on. Doc had money to burn. He would get men by the dozen.…
    This chilling probability brought Swimmer to his feet. It was still raining, and the darkness had grayed only a trifle, but he knew he shouldn’t waste any more time.
    He began limping to the edge of the torrent. His intention was to follow the bank, find a quiet stretch where he could safely enter the water, then drift downstream. But he had taken only a few steps through the brush when a frightening thing happened.
    The silver harness holding his bell caught on something sharp, and for long frantic seconds he was trapped. It was almost dawn when he finally freed himself and discovered that the sharp thing was a piece of rusted barbed wire. It was dangling from an overgrown fence.
    Fuming, Swimmer tried desperately to squirm out of the dangerous harness. It was impossible. Had there been only the single chain about his neck that held the bell, he could have managed it easily. But there was a second chain behind his shoulders, and the two were linked tightly together. To get out of the dratted thing he would simply have to have help.
    He crawled glumly under the fence and began limping downstream, the silver bell tinkling merrily with every painful movement. Since there was nothing he could do about the hateful sound, he tried to ignore it as he studied the creek. In the dawn mist the water didn’t look quite so evil as the thunder of it in the dark had indicated. He crept down to the water, then hesitated while he tried to find the courage to enter it.
    So much time had passed since he had been in a stream like this that for a moment Swimmer knew the old terror he had felt as a pup—the terror every pup feels before its mother forces it to swim. In the next breath fear was replaced by icy shock as he drove himself into the mist-laced current.
    He gasped and grunted, sure that it would be the death of him. But after the first few minutes it didn’t seem so bad. Then suddenly, for a little while, it was quite wonderful, and he found himself barking and chuckling happily, his injury nearly forgotten. Suddenly he glimpsed what he thought was a startled fish trying to dart away from him, and he made the mistake of trying to catch it. Such blinding pain shot through his leg that he was momentarily helpless.
    He swam weakly to the farther bank and crawled out in a protected spot beneath an overhanging rock. Gradually the pain quieted. In its place came hunger.
    His hunger increased through the morning, then grew teeth as he searched frantically along the bank, turning over small stones and driftwood in a hunt for something edible. Longingly he thought of the uneaten trout Clarence had brought him. It would have taken several trout that size to satisfy him now, but all he could find was one tiny frog that was hardly worth the painful effort of catching it.
    â€œAw, blatts!” he muttered finally, in weary disgust. “What am I going to do?”
    He wasn’t exactly frightened, but it was sort of jolting to realize that he was about as helpless as a month-old pup. What was he going to do?
    Almost desperately he looked up at the wise old trees leaning overhead, something his mother always did when she wanted information. Had the trees seen others of the otter folk come this way? Did they know what he wanted to know? They did, and they told him—not with speech, but with a sort of flowing of knowledge they shared with all the wild who would listen.
    Swimmer listened. It came to him that every stream too close to man has barren areas and that he was on the edge of them now. He must leave and cross the ridge to another creek. Others of his kind had been doing it for years. He might even find their trail.
    Save for the rain, which had died to a misty drizzle, Swimmer might have