In the morning the two friends proceeded on their way, walking as fast as they could, for they were in great haste to make their fortunes. Occasionally they met a good farmer who gave them apples and cabbages to eat. They walked and walked all day long; sometimes Bunny ran ahead over the roofs of the hills, but he always returned to see if Bumps was following him. And all the time Bumps’ little legs were growing stronger and stronger, so that he seldom fell and hardly felt tired at all, which made him very proud. Finally, Bunny vanished over the top of the very last, highest hill, and though Bumps looked and looked for him, he didn’t come back. When Bumps caught up with him he found him sitting on the doorstep of a great river, wondering how they would ever get across. Alas! Poor Bumps himself could see no way to go on, and feared that they would have to turn back. While they stood sadly looking at the deep water as it went rushing by them, there was a great splashing and rippling all about, and hundreds of fish, of every kind and color in the whole world, poked their heads up above the surface, just exactly as if they were trying to tell the travelers something. Then Bumps and Bunny noticed that the fish were floating side by side, packed tightly together all the way across the river in a long, glistening silver bridge. Bumps had never heard of anyone crossing a river on a bridge of fish, but he stepped boldly out, with Bunny in his arms. And when he had safely reached the other side, without even so much as getting the soles of his feet damp, he thanked the fish for their kindness by digging hundreds of worms for them (with the help of Bunny’s sharp little claws). As fast as they could dig they threw the worms into the river, and just as fast they disappeared into the fishes’ mouths.