ng meat and the little houses
that Omnok builds.

CHAPTER XV

LITTLE WHITE FOX GOES FISHING

Little White Fox was hungry again. It would seem that a little white fox
is hungry most of the time. He went wandering all over the tundra,
looking for something to eat. At last he came to the bank of the river.
He was sniffing about there when he spied a door right in the ground
near the ice roof of the river. "Hello!" said he, stopping short, "I
wonder who made that door in there." He looked into the door but could
see no one. It was too dark. He shouted into the door, but no one
answered. He crept part way down the stairway. Then he stopped and
listened. He heard nothing, so he ventured on, and almost before he knew
it, he found himself in one of the biggest caves he had ever seen. It
was as wide as half the river and as long as he could see in each
direction. It had an ice roof and a good solid floor. Only the floor
stopped pretty soon, and then there was water.

"I don't believe anybody in the world could build a house like this!"
said Little White Fox. "I guess it just happened to be here, and some
one has discovered it. I wonder who it could be?"

He walked down close to where the water was, and there he found tracks.
Oh! hundreds and hundreds of them! But he could not tell whose tracks
they were. He had never seen such tracks before.

"Anyway, I believe there is something good to eat in that water," he
said to himself. "If there wasn't, that fellow wouldn't come down here
and stand around so much. It is nice and warm down here out of the wind,
and I guess I'll stand around a little myself and see what will happen."

Meanwhile, down below in the river, two of the little river people were
having a talk all by themselves. They were Unfortunate Flounder and Mr.
Salmon Trout. Salmon Trout is a very graceful fellow who always holds
himself erect in the water. When he swims, he goes so swiftly that you
can hardly see him. But Unfortunate Flounder goes floating around on one
side all the time, and looks more like a dead leaf than any member of
the fish family.

"Why do you not stand straight up in the water as I do?" said Salmon
Trout.

"Well," said Unfortunate Flounder, "it's only a little my fault. Can't
you see that my eyes are on one of my flat sides and my stomach on the
other? It wouldn't be very pleasant to go about looking one way and
going another, would it? When I was going south, I'd be looking west