For even if you should catch a fish , I have no fire to cook it with . ' ` Let me catch my fish , and I will soon make you a fire , ' he answered gaily , for he was young , and knew nothing about the difficulties of fire-making . It took him some time to haul the net through bushes and over fields , but at length he reached a pool in the river which he had often heard was swarming with fish , and here he set the net , as his grandmother had directed him . He was so excited that he hardly slept all night , and at the very first streak of dawn he ran as fast as ever he could down to the river . His heart beat as quickly as if he had had dogs behind him , and he hardly dared to look , lest he should be disappointed . Would there be even one fish ? And at this thought the pangs of hunger made him feel quite sick with fear . But he need not have been afraid ; in every mesh of the net was a fine fat fish , and of course the net itself was so heavy that he could only lift one corner . He threw some of the fish back into the water , and buried some more in a hole under a stone , where he would be sure to find them . Then he rolled up the net with the rest , put it on his back and carried it home . The weight of the load caused his back to ache , and he was thankful to drop it outside their hut , while he rushed in , full of joy , to tell his grandmother . ` Be quick and clean them ! ' he said , ` and I will go to those people 's tents on the other side of the water . ' The old woman stared at him in horror as she listened to his proposal . Other people had tried to steal fire before , and few indeed had come back with their lives ; but as , contrary to all her expectations , he had managed to catch such a number of fish , she thought that perhaps there was some magic about him which she did not know of , and did not try to hinder him . When the fish were all taken out , he fetched the net which he had laid out to dry , folded it up very small , and ran down to the river , hoping that he might find a place narrow enough for him to jump over ; but he soon saw that it was too wide for even the best jumper in the world . For a few moments he stood there , wondering what was to be done , then there darted into his head some words of a spell which he had once heard a wizard use , while drinking from the river . He repeated them , as well as he could remember , and waited to see what would happen . In five minutes such a grunting and a puffing was heard , and columns of water rose into the air , though he could not tell what had made them . Then round the bend of the stream came fifteen huge whales , which he ordered to place themselves heads to tails , like stepping stones , so that he could jump from one to the other till he landed on the opposite shore .
Directly he got there he told the whales that he did not need them any more , and sat down in the sand XXXXX rest .
In about into of on outside that till to while