“There’s one! There’s one! There’s one! Oh, throw something to make it go faster. Throw something! Quick! Quick! Quick! No⁠—I don’t mean to hit it. I don’t mean to hurt it. To make it swim faster! There! I can’t throw straight. Oh, do look at its head breathing and puffing! Oh, what ripples it makes!”

Conjured in this way to join in this sport, Wolf did pick up an enormous piece of wet mud and hurled it in the trail of the swimming rat.

The muddy ripples from this missile came rushing up behind that pointed little head, came splashing against those pointed little ears. Gerda clasped her hands. “Swim! Swim! Swim!” she called out; and then in her excitement she pouted her mouth into a reed-mouth and uttered a long, strange, low, liquid cry that was like no sound Wolf had ever heard in his life.