River Creatures, and The Horse Snake Summary and Analysis

River Creatures: One day, Nhuong got the idea to disrupt an otters' party. An "otters' party" was a rare gathering of otters on the riverbank, where they would bring and eat a large number of fish. Nhuong knew that the otters would quickly scatter if they saw a human, so Nhuong wore brown clothing and rode flat on the back of Tank to avoid detection. Tank wandered over to the otters' party, where Nhuong sprang from his back and frightened the otters away. Nhuong got an impressive twenty-four fish from the raid, and he continued with several successful raids.

On one raid, Nhuong discovered three otter cubs in a hole. Cubs were prized because they could be taught to catch fish for their owner. Nhuong crawled into the cub hole, but...