Page:Little Joe Otter.djvu/195

 their watchfulness, one of the children will get caught in a terrible trap and be killed. I think the sooner we move along the better. Safety is the most important thing."

So once more Little Joe and his family went traveling. There was a crust on the snow now, and they had a lot of fun sliding. Moreover, they didn't leave a trail as when they had left the Laughing Brook in the soft snow. They followed the big brook on its way towards the Big River. Now and then they came to open places where the water was swift and hadn't frozen. There they stopped to fish. Sometimes they swam for quite a distance under the ice.