waded out ... to relieve their pain”

“He could not help feeling sorry for the poor turtle ...”

In South America there is a river called the Yabebirì; and it flows through the city of Misiones. In this river there are many rays, a kind of mud fish like the salt-water skate; and the river, indeed, gets its name from them: “Yabebirì” means the “river of ray fish.” The ray is a wide, flat fish with a long, slender tail. The tail is very bony; and when it strikes you it cuts, and leaves poison in the wound.

There are so many rays in the river that it is dangerous even to put your foot into the water. I once knew a man who had his heel pricked by a ray. He had to walk more than two miles home, groaning with pain all the way and fainting several times from the poison. The pain from a ray bite is one of the sharpest pains one can feel.

But there are also other kinds of fish in the Yabebirì; and most of them are good to eat. That is why some evil men once began to fish for them with dynamite. They put the dynamite under water and set it off. The shock of the explosion stunned and killed all the fish nearby; and not only the big fish, but also the little ones, which cannot be eaten. It is very cruel and wasteful to hunt fish with dynamite.

However, there was a man who lived on the bank of the river; and he was sorry for the poor fish, especially the little ones; and he told the bad men that they must stop bombing the fish. At first they were angry and said they would do what they liked. But the man was known everywhere to be an upright, honest man, and finally they obeyed him and set off no more bombs in the river.

And the fish were grateful to this man, whom they had come to know the moment he approached the edge of the water. Whenever he walked along the bank smoking his pipe, the rays especially would swim along the bottom to keep him company. He, of course, did not know he had so many friends in the river. He lived there just because he liked the place.

Now, it happened one afternoon that a fox came running down to the river; and putting his forepaws into the water he called:

“Hey there, you ray fish! Quick! Quick! Here comes that friend of yours! He’s in trouble!”

All the rays who heard came swimming up anxiously to the edge of the water.

“What’s the matter? Where is he?” they asked.

“Here he comes!” answered the fox. “He has been fighting with a panther, and is trying to get away! He wants to get over to that island! Let him cross, for he is a very good man!”

“Of course we will! Of course we will!” the rays answered. “As for the panther, we will fix him!”

“Yes, but remember a panther is a panther!” said the fox; by which he meant that a panther is almost as hard to fight with as a tiger. And the fox gave a little jump and ran back into the woods, so as not to be near when the panther came.

A second or two later, the branches along the river bank were pushed aside, and the man came running down to the water’s edge. He was all bleeding and his shirt was torn. From a scratch on his face the blood was streaming down off his chin, and his sleeves were wet with blood also. It was clear that the man was very badly hurt; for he almost fell as he ran out into the river. When he put his feet into the water, the rays moved aside so that their tails would not touch him; and he waded across to the island, with the water coming up to his breast. On the other