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Title: Toto, the Bustling Beaver
       His Many Adventures

Author: Richard Barnum

Illustrator: Walter S. Rogers

Release Date: July 31, 2020 [EBook #62794]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

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[Illustration: Right on top of the bark cabin crashed the tree.]




                       _Kneetime Animal Stories_


                                 TOTO
                          THE BUSTLING BEAVER

                          HIS MANY ADVENTURES


                                  BY
                            RICHARD BARNUM

          Author of “Squinty, the Comical Pig,” “Tum Tum, the
            Jolly Elephant,” “Sharp Eyes, the Silver Fox,”
                    “Tamba, the Tame Tiger,” “Nero,
                        the Circus Lion,” Etc.


                            _ILLUSTRATED BY
                           WALTER S. ROGERS_


                               NEW YORK
                            BARSE & HOPKINS
                              PUBLISHERS




KNEETIME ANIMAL STORIES

By Richard Barnum

_Large 12mo. Illustrated._


  SQUINTY, THE COMICAL PIG.
  SLICKO, THE JUMPING SQUIRREL.
  MAPPO, THE MERRY MONKEY.
  TUM TUM, THE JOLLY ELEPHANT.
  DON, A RUNAWAY DOG.
  DIDO, THE DANCING BEAR.
  BLACKIE, A LOST CAT.
  FLOP EAR, THE FUNNY RABBIT.
  TINKLE, THE TRICK PONY.
  LIGHTFOOT, THE LEAPING GOAT.
  CHUNKY, THE HAPPY HIPPO.
  SHARP EYES, THE SILVER FOX.
  NERO, THE CIRCUS LION.
  TAMBA, THE TAME TIGER.
  TOTO, THE BUSTLING BEAVER.

 BARSE & HOPKINS
 Publishers      New York

                            Copyright, 1920
                                  by
                            Barse & Hopkins


                      _Toto, the Bustling Beaver_




CONTENTS


 CHAPTER                              PAGE
      I  TOTO HELPS MILLIE               7
     II  TOTO LEARNS TO GNAW            17
    III  TOTO MEETS DON                 26
     IV  TOTO AND THE TRAMPS            35
      V  TOTO SEES SOMETHING QUEER      46
     VI  TOTO AND THE BURGLARS          54
    VII  TOTO AND THE BOY               64
   VIII  TOTO MEETS BLACKIE             71
     IX  TOTO IN A TRAP                 81
      X  TOTO ON A BOAT                 89
     XI  TOTO GETS HOME AGAIN           98
    XII  TOTO IN A STORM               108




ILLUSTRATIONS


 Right on top of the bark cabin crashed the tree        _Frontispiece_

                                                                 PAGE

 And he slipped down, tail first through the hole                  23

 Crash! Bang! went the big tree                                    41

 Everybody in the beaver colony had work to do                     59

 “I’ll help you down out of the tree,” said Toto cheerfully        79

 And then, through the bushes, came a boy                          95

 A tree had fallen on Toto’s back, pinning him to the ground      113




TOTO, THE BUSTLING BEAVER




CHAPTER I

TOTO HELPS MILLIE


“Toto! Toto! Where are you?”

There was no answer to this call, which Mrs. Beaver, the mother of
Toto, sounded as she climbed up on the ice and looked around for her
little boy. Mrs. Beaver sat on her broad, flat tail, which really made
quite a good seat, and with her sharp eyes she looked up and down
Winding River for a sight of Toto. Then she called again, in beaver
animal language of course:

“Toto! Toto! Come home this minute! You’ve been out on the ice long
enough! And goodness knows we’ve had plenty of ice and snow this
winter,” went on Mrs. Beaver, and she kept on looking up and down the
frozen river. “I’ll be glad when spring comes so we beavers can gnaw
down trees, eat the soft bark, and make dams for our houses,” she
added.

But though she called as loudly as she could, and looked sharply up
and down the river, which was covered with a sheet of smooth ice, Mrs.
Beaver could see nothing of her little boy, Toto.

“What’s the matter?” asked an old gentleman beaver, who came along just
then. “Has Toto run away?”

“I don’t know that I’d call it exactly running away, Mr. Cuppy,”
answered Mrs. Beaver. “I said he could go out of the house and play on
the ice a little while, but I told him to come back and get his willow
bark lunch. But he hasn’t come, so I walked out to call him.”

“And he doesn’t answer,” said Mr. Cuppy, the old beaver gentleman, with
a laugh――of course he laughed animal fashion, and not as you do. “I
guess Toto is off playing tag, or something like that, on the ice with
the other beaver boys,” added Mr. Cuppy. “I’m going down the river to
call on some friends of mine. If I see Toto I’ll tell him you want him.”

“I wish you would,” said Mrs. Beaver. “Please tell him to come straight
home.”

“I will,” answered Mr. Cuppy, and then he got up from the ice, where
he had sat down on his broad, flat tail to talk to Toto’s mother, and
walked slowly down the ice-covered river which ran into Clearwater Lake.

That is, the river ran in summer time. In winter it was frozen over,
though of course the water ran under the ice, where boys and girls
could not see it. But Toto, Mr. Cuppy, and the other beavers could see
it, for they could dive under the ice and swim in the water that flowed
beneath it. In fact, they would rather swim in the water, cold as it
was, than walk on the ice.

For a beaver can not very well walk on the ice――it is too slippery. Nor
can a beaver walk very fast even on dry ground. But, my! how fast they
can swim in water. So, though beavers very often come out on the land,
or shore, they always run for the water, dive down, and swim away as
soon as there is the least sign of danger.

Mrs. Beaver walked back toward the hole in the ice through which she
intended getting into her house, where she lived with her husband, Mr.
Beaver, Toto, and another little beaver boy named Sniffy.

Mrs. Beaver’s home looked just like a bundle of sticks from the
woodpile, laid together criss-cross fashion. In fact, if you had seen
it from the outside you would have said it was only a heap of rubbish.

This heap of sticks was built out near the middle of Winding River,
which was not a very large stream. And now that the river was frozen,
the pile of sticks, which made the beaver house, was heaped up above
the frozen ice.

The front door to the beaver home was under water――so far under that
it did not freeze――and when Toto or any of the family wanted to come
out, they had to dive down, swim under water, and come out on top some
distance away. When the river was not frozen they could come out of the
water wherever they pleased. But when Jack Frost had made the river a
solid, hard sheet of ice, the beavers had to come out of it just where
a hole had been made for them. Sometimes they made the hole themselves
by blowing their warm breath on the underside of the ice, and sometimes
they used an airhole such as you often see when you are skating.

Mrs. Beaver found the hole through the ice, dived down into the water,
swam along a short distance until she reached the front door of her
house of sticks and frozen mud, and then she went up inside.

The house was nicely lined inside with soft grass, and there were a
number of short pieces of sticks scattered about. It was the bark from
these sticks that the beavers lived on in winter.

“Did you find Toto?” asked Mr. Beaver, who was taking a little nap in
the house.

“No, I didn’t,” answered Mrs. Beaver. “But I met Mr. Cuppy, the old
grandfather beaver, you know, and he said if he saw Toto he’d send our
little boy home.”

“That is very kind of Mr. Cuppy.” Mr. Beaver stretched himself. “Well,
I think I’ll gnaw a little more bark.”

“I want some, too!” called Sniffy, the other little beaver boy.

“Here you are!” said his mother, and she took some of the bark-covered
sticks from a pile at one side of the house.

Of course it was dark inside the house, for mud was plastered thickly
over the crossed sticks to keep out the cold and snow. But beavers can
see well enough in the dark, just as owls can, or cats.

After Mr. Cuppy had watched Mrs. Beaver dive down through the ice and
swim away, he walked on down the frozen river. He looked from side to
side as he waddled slowly along, hoping to see Toto. But the beaver boy
was not in sight.

And now, so that you may wonder no longer what had become of the little
beaver boy, I’ll tell you where he was and some of the wonderful
adventures that happened to him.

Toto had asked his mother if he might go out on the ice and play, and
she had said he might. Toto was about a year old, having been born
the previous spring, and he knew that in winter there was not much to
eat outside the beaver house. But he had gnawed a number of sticks of
poplar, and of willow, with the sweet, juicy bark on, and now he was
not hungry. He was tired of being cooped up in the dark house, frozen
fast in the river. So Toto had gone out, and had walked along the ice
until he was quite a long way from home.

“But I guess I can easily find my way back,” thought Toto to himself.
“It’s pretty slippery walking, and I’d a good deal rather swim, but if
I walk slowly I won’t slip.”

So he had walked along the ice until he was out of sight of his home,
around one of the many curves in Winding River. That was the reason
Mrs. Beaver could not see her little boy, and also why Toto could not
hear his mother calling to him. He did not really mean to stay out when
his mother did not want him to.

“Ah, that looks like something good to eat!” said Toto to himself,
as he saw some straggly bushes growing on the bank of the river. The
bushes had no leaves on, of course, for this was March, and winter was
still king of the land. But Toto thought there might be bark on some of
the twigs of the bushes, and bark was what the beavers mostly ate in
winter. He was not hungry, but Toto, like other boys, was always ready
to eat.

Toto walked slowly over the ice, and, standing up on his hind legs and
partly sitting on his broad, flat tail, which was almost like the
mortar trowel a mason uses, the little beaver boy began to gnaw the
bark.

But he had not taken more than a bite or two before he stopped suddenly.

“Ouch!” cried Toto. “Something bit me!”

He looked about――there were no bees or wasps flying, which might have
stung him. Still something had pricked him on his tongue. Then he
looked more closely at the twig he had been gnawing.

“Oh, ho!” exclaimed Toto. “No wonder! This is a blackberry bush, and
the thorns pricked me. I won’t gnaw any more of this bark.”

Toto backed away and started over the ice again, but he had not moved
more than a few feet from the thick clump of blackberry bushes, growing
on the edge of the river, when, all of a sudden, the little beaver boy
heard a queer noise――several noises, in fact.

One was a tinkly sound, a sound Toto remembered to have heard when in
summer a farmer was hoeing corn in a field near the river, and his hoe
struck on a stone in the dirt. Then came the noise of a thud, as if
something heavy had fallen on the ice. And after that sounded the voice
of a little girl saying:

“Oh dear! There goes my skate!”

Of course Toto did not understand man, girl, or boy talk. But he knew
what it was, for in the summer, as he played around his stick-home in
the river, he had often heard the farmer and his hired men talking in
the fields not far away. So, though Toto did not know what the little
girl said, he knew it was the same sound the farmer and his men had
made when they talked to one another. And Toto was afraid of men, and
boys and girls, too, though I don’t believe any girl would have tried
to hurt or catch the beaver, nice as is their fur.

But this particular little girl, whose name was Millie Watson, did not
even know Toto was near her. She had been skating on the ice when one
of her skates suddenly came off, and she fell down.

The tinkly sound the beaver heard was the loose steel skate sliding
over the ice and striking a stone near the bush under which Toto was
hidden. The thudding sound was that made by Millie when she fell. But
she was not hurt.

“Oh, dear!” she said again. “I wonder where my skate slid to. I can’t
get along on only one skate, and it’s slow walking on the ice. Where is
it?”

She slowly arose to her feet. One skate was still on her foot, but on
the other shoe was only a loose strap. Millie, who had skated from
her home to take a little pail of soup to her grandmother, who lived
farther down the river, was on her way back when she lost her skate.

“I don’t see where it can be,” mused the little girl, looking here and
there on the ice. The reason she could not see the skate was because it
had slid under the edge of the overhanging berry bush.

“I hope she doesn’t see me!” thought Toto, as he crouched down under
the twigs. “I wish it were summer, and there were leaves on this bush.
I could hide better then, and the river wouldn’t be frozen, so I could
swim away very fast if this girl comes after me. Dear me! I wonder what
she is doing here, anyhow.”

Toto did not know much about skating. But as he peered out at the
little girl he saw her pushing herself along on one foot, and on that
foot was something long, thin and shiny. It sparkled in the sun, just
as the blade of the farmer’s hoe sometimes sparkled.

Toto looked on either side of him, and there, close to him, was another
shiny thing, just like the one the girl had on one foot. Toto could see
the girl moving slowly along, and looking from side to side.

“She must be looking for me!” thought Toto, and his heart began to beat
very fast, for his father and mother had told him always to keep away
from men and boys; and this girl was probably just like a boy, the
little beaver thought. He had seen boys along the river bank in summer
trying to catch muskrats, and sometimes trying to catch beavers, too.
Toto did not want to be caught.

So he crouched lower and lower under the bush, and then, all of a
sudden, his feet slipped on the ice and they struck the long, shiny
thing that was like the object the girl had on one foot.

Instantly there was another tinkly sound, and the shiny thing slid
across the ice, out from under the overhanging bush and straight toward
the little girl.

“Oh! Oh!” cried Millie, clapping her mittened hands. “Here is my lost
skate! It was under the bush, but I wonder what pushed it out! There
must be something there! I’m going to look!”

Toto heard this talk, but did not know what it was. However, he
could see the little girl stoop down and pick up the skate he had
accidentally knocked over the ice to her. Then he saw Millie come
straight toward the bush under which he was hiding!




CHAPTER II

TOTO LEARNS TO GNAW


Toto, the little beaver boy, was a bright, bustling chap. He was what
is called a “hustler” or a “bustler”――that is, some one always ready
for work or play. But just now, as Toto saw the little girl coming
toward the bush where he was hidden, he did not know what to do.

“But I’m going to do something!” thought the beaver boy. “I’m not going
to let her catch me! Maybe that’s a trap she tried to get me in――maybe
that shiny thing is a trap!”

Toto knew what traps were, for his father and mother had told him about
them, and how to keep away from their sharp teeth that caught beavers
and muskrats by the legs.

Millie came closer and closer. With bright, eager eyes, almost as
bright and eager as those of Toto himself, she looked at the bush.

Toto was all ready to run, and he wished, more than ever, that the
river was not frozen, since he would not have been a bit afraid if
he could have jumped in the flowing stream to swim away. He was not
afraid of any creature in the water, and the fishes were friends of his.

Then, all at once, just as Toto was going to start to run and do his
best on the slippery ice, he felt himself falling. He had been standing
on the edge of the frozen river, where the ice was very thin, and it
had given away, letting him down through a hole into the water.

“Oh, now I’m all right!” said Toto to himself when he felt the water
wetting his thick fur, though it could not wet his skin beneath.

And so he was. He was in water now, where he felt much more at home
than on the ice. And as he slipped down, tail first through the hole
that had broken, he had a glimpse of the little girl.

The little girl saw Toto, too, and as soon as she had seen him she
clapped her red-mittened hands again and cried:

“Oh, it’s a little beaver! He knocked my skate out to me! Oh, don’t go
away, little beaver!” cried Millie. “I won’t hurt you!”

But of course Toto did not know that, and he did not know what the
little girl was saying. He just wanted to get away from her, and back
to his own stick house. So he dived down under the water, his fur being
so thick and warm that he was not a bit cold. And away he swam beneath
the ice that covered Winding River.

“Oh, he’s gone!” cried Millie, when she saw the beaver disappear. “I
wish I could have him to take home! Maybe I’ll see him again! Anyhow,
he was nice to shove my skate out to me!”

Millie sat down on the bank and began putting on the skate that had
slipped off, causing her to fall. And, though she never guessed it, she
was to see Toto again, and the beaver was to see how Millie and her
grandmother were made happy.

“Well, Toto, where have you been?” asked his mother, when, some little
time later, the beaver boy swam up to the front door of the stick
house. “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

“I didn’t mean to stay away so long, Mother,” answered Toto, in beaver
talk, of course. “But it was so slippery on the ice that, when I got to
going, it was hard to stop. I tried to eat some bark, but it was full
of stickers, and then I had an adventure.”

“What’s an adventure?” asked Sniffy, who was not quite so bold and
daring as was Toto.

“It’s something that happens to you,” Toto answered.

“And what happened to you?” asked Mr. Beaver.

Toto told them about Millie’s skate coming off, though of course he did
not call it a skate. He said it was a “trap.”

“You did well to hurry away,” said his father. “It’s lucky for you that
you fell through the hole in the ice and could swim. Always, when you
are in danger, get in the water if you can. Very few animals can swim
as fast as we beavers swim. The water is the place for us, even though
we have to go on land to gnaw down the trees for the dams we make.”

“Why do we have to make dams?” asked Sniffy.

“To make the water deep enough for our houses in places where it is
otherwise too shallow,” answered Mr. Beaver. “By putting a lot of
trees, sticks, clumps of grass, and mud across a stream the water
backs up, and gets deep behind the dam, over which it flows, making a
waterfall. We need to build our houses behind the dam, so as to have
our doors under water. If we didn’t, other animals from the land would
come in and get us. But land animals can not get into our houses as
long as the front doors are under water, though it is easy for us
to dive down and come up inside where the water does not reach. Did
anything else happen to you, Toto?” asked his father.

“Well, I swam home under the ice as fast as I could,” answered the
little beaver boy.

“Did you see anything of Mr. Cuppy?” asked Mrs. Beaver.

“No, I didn’t,” Toto answered. “Did some one try to catch him in a
trap, too?”

“No. But he said he’d send you home if he met you,” replied Mrs.
Beaver. “Of course he didn’t meet you. I’ll go out and tell him he
needn’t look for you any more, as you are now at home.”

“Yes, and I’m hungry, too,” said Toto. “The bark on the bush under
which I hid was full of thorns. I couldn’t eat it.”

“Here is some nice aspen bark,” said Mr. Beaver. “Let me see your
teeth, Toto?”

“What for?” the little beaver boy wanted to know.

“To see if they are going to be strong enough to help us gnaw down
trees this summer,” went on Mr. Beaver.

Toto opened his mouth. His teeth were strong and white, that is all
except the four front, or gnawing teeth. Two of these in his upper jaw
and two in his lower jaw were a sort of red, or orange, color. All
beavers have orange-colored gnawing teeth, and the rest are white, like
yours.

“Humph! Yes, I think you’ll be big enough to help us gnaw down trees
this summer,” said Daddy Beaver, as he looked at Toto’s orange teeth,
which were almost as sharp and strong as the chisels the carpenter uses
to smooth wood with which to build a house.

“Is it very hard to gnaw trees down?” Toto wanted to know.

“It must be easy,” said Sniffy, who was eating some aspen bark in the
stick house. “See how easy I can strip this bark off this piece of log.”

“Gnawing bark is much easier than gnawing through the wood of a big,
hard tree,” said Mr. Beaver. “You boys will learn that soon enough. But
here, Toto, try some of this bark.”

So Toto and Sniffy gnawed the bark, and Toto told his brother more
about the little girl he had seen. He thought she had tried to trap
him, but we know Millie had done nothing of the sort. Only her skate
had come off.

“And what do you think!” the little girl said, after she had reached
home and was telling her mother about it that night at supper. “My
skate slid right over the ice, under a bush, and a little beaver that
was there pushed it out to me.”

“So the beavers are around here, are they?” asked Millie’s father. “I
wondered what made a part of Winding River flow so slowly this fall.
The beavers must have dammed it up. Well, the beavers are hard-working
animals and do little harm. We won’t disturb them.”

The rest of that winter Toto lived in the stick house with the other
beavers. He did not go out very often, for there is not much beavers
can do until the ice and snow are gone. Toto went out on the frozen
river a few times, however, but he did not again see the little girl on
skates. And though Millie went out skating, she did not see Toto until
later in the season. I’ll tell you about that after a while.

[Illustration: And he slipped down, tail first through the hole.]

Meanwhile the sun climbed higher and higher in the sky. It warmed the
earth, the snow and ice melted, the banks of Winding River became
green, as the leaves came out on the trees and bushes, and one day Mr.
Beaver said:

“Come with me, Toto and Sniffy. You are going to learn how to gnaw down
trees.”

“Are we going to help build the dam bigger?” asked Toto.

“Yes, that’s what you are,” his father said.

He dived down in the water, to slip out of the front door, and the
two beaver boys followed him. Their noses closed, and they kept their
mouths tightly shut while under water. But they had their eyes open
to see where to swim. They came out on top of the water not far from
their own house. But almost as soon as they had poked up their noses to
take long breaths, Toto and Sniffy heard a booming, whacking noise, and
their father cried:

“Back! Back, boys! Dive down! There’s danger!”




CHAPTER III

TOTO MEETS DON


You may well believe that Toto and Sniffy did not lose any time diving
down under water as soon as they heard their father tell them to do
so. Many times before, when they were first learning to swim, they had
dived down quickly like this just after they had poked up their noses
to get a breath of air. And always their father or mother had swum with
them out of danger.

“What was that whacking noise, Dad?” asked Sniffy, when they were once
more safely back in their stick and mud house.

“That was Mr. Cuppy banging his flat tail on the water to let us know
there was some danger,” answered Mr. Beaver. “Cuppy, or some of the
older beavers, are always on guard at or near the dam. If they hear,
see or smell danger they whack with their tails. And whenever you hear
that whacking sound you little fellows must dive into the water and
swim away just as fast as you can.”

“Oh, now I remember about Mr. Cuppy whacking with his tail!” exclaimed
Toto. “You told us that last summer, didn’t you, Dad?”

“Yes. But the winter has been long, and all that time you have had no
chance to hear Mr. Cuppy bang his tail on the water, so I was afraid
you had forgotten,” said Mr. Beaver.

“I did forget,” answered Sniffy.

“And I did, too,” said Toto. “But now I’m always going to listen for
Mr. Cuppy’s tail.”

“And run and dive into the water as fast as you can when you hear him
whacking and banging,” advised Mr. Beaver. “Now we’ll wait a little
while and then we’ll swim up again. The danger may have passed.”

Toto and his brother waited with their father perhaps five minutes in
the beaver house. Then, once more, they dived down, out of the front
door, and up into the river, a little farther away. Mr. Beaver went
ahead, and poked up his nose first to look about. He saw a number of
beavers working on the dam, among them Mr. Cuppy.

“Is it all right?” called Mr. Beaver to the old gentleman.

“Yes, come along. We need lots of help to make the dam bigger and
stronger,” answered Mr. Cuppy. “Where are your two boys?”

“Right here,” answered their father. “It’s all right! Bob up your
heads!” he called to Toto and Sniffy.

Up they swam, and soon they were among their friends on the dam,
which was made of a number of trees laid crosswise over the narrow
part of the river. Sticks had been piled back of the trees, and mud,
grass-hummocks, and leaves were piled back of the sticks, so that very
little water could run through. Back of the dam the water was quite
deep, but in front it was very shallow. The beavers all had their
houses back of the dam.

“What was the danger?” asked Mr. Beaver of Mr. Cuppy, as the two animal
gentlemen walked along on top of the dam. “Did you see a bear or some
other big animal?”

“No,” answered Mr. Cuppy. “The reason I whacked my tail was because I
saw five or six men over in the woods where the trees are that we are
going to cut down for our dam.”

“Were they hunter men, with guns?” asked Mr. Beaver.

“No, they didn’t seem to be hunters,” answered Mr. Cuppy. “They were
rough-looking men, and not dressed as nicely as most hunters are. These
men had old rusty cans in their hands――cans like those we sometimes
find in our river. I thought they were coming over to our dam to catch
us, but they didn’t. However I gave the danger signal.”

“Yes, it’s best to be on the safe side,” returned Mr. Beaver. “Well,
now we are here――my two boys and myself――and we are ready to help gnaw
down trees for you. My wife will be here in a little while. She has
gone to see if she can find some aspen bark for our dinner.”

“My wife has gone to look for some, too,” said Mr. Cuppy. “Well, now,
let’s see! Have Toto and Sniffy ever cut down any trees?”

“No, this will be the first time for them,” said their father.

“Well, take them over to the little grove and show them how to work,”
advised Mr. Cuppy. “We shall need many trees this spring. How are you,
boys? Ready to gnaw with your red teeth?”

“Yes, sir,” answered Toto and Sniffy.

“Come along!” called their father, and into the water they jumped from
the top of the dam, to swim to where the trees grew beside the river.

Beavers always swim, if they can, to wherever they want to go. They
would much rather swim than walk, as they can swim so much better and
faster. So, in a little while, Toto and Sniffy stood with their father
beside a tree which, near where the tree trunk went into the ground,
was as large around as your head.

“We will cut down this tree,” said Mr. Beaver.

“What! That big tree?” cried Toto. “We can never gnaw that down, Dad!
It will take a year!”

“Nonsense!” laughed Mr. Beaver. “We can gnaw down larger trees than
this. Before you boys are much older you’ll do it yourselves. But now
come on, let’s start. I’ll watch you and tell you when you do things
the wrong way. That’s the way to learn.”

“I guess I know how to gnaw a tree down!” boasted Sniffy. “I’ve often
watched Mr. Cuppy do it.” This little beaver boy stood up on his hind
legs, using his tail as a sort of stool to sit on, and he began cutting
through the bark of the tree, using his four, strong orange-colored
front teeth to gnaw with.

“Here! Hold on! Wait a minute!” cried Mr. Beaver to his son, while
Toto, who was just going to help his brother, wondered what was the
matter.

“Isn’t this the tree you want gnawed down, Dad?” asked Sniffy.

“Yes, that’s the one,” his father answered. “But if you start to gnaw
on that side first the tree will fall right on top of those others,
instead of falling flat on the ground as we want it to. You must begin
to gnaw on the other side, Sniffy. Then, as soon as you have nearly cut
it through, the tree will fall in this open place.”

“Oh, I didn’t know that,” said Sniffy.

“Nor I,” added his brother.

“Always look to see which way a tree is going to fall,” advised Daddy
Beaver, “and be careful you are not under it when it falls. If you do
as I tell you then you will always be able to tell just which way a
tree will fall to make it easier to get it to the dam.”

Then Mr. Beaver told the boys how to do this――how to start gnawing on
the side of the tree so that it would fall away from them. Lumbermen
know which way to make a tree fall, by cutting or sawing it in a
certain manner, and beavers are almost as smart as are lumbermen.

How they do it I can’t tell you, but it is true that beavers can make
a tree fall almost in the exact spot they want it. Of course accidents
will happen now and then, and some beavers have been caught under the
trees they were gnawing down. But generally they make no mistakes.

“How are we going to get the tree to the dam after we gnaw through the
trunk?” asked Toto, as he and Sniffy began cutting through the outer
bark with their strong, red teeth. “We can’t carry it there.”

“We could if we could bite it into short pieces, as we bite and gnaw
into short pieces the logs we gnaw bark from in our house all winter,”
said Sniffy.

“We don’t want this tree cut up into little pieces,” said Daddy Beaver.
“It must be in one, long length, to go on top of the dam.”

“We never can drag this tree to the dam after we have gnawed it down!”
sighed Toto. “It will be too hard work!”

“You won’t have to do that,” said his father with a laugh. “We will
make the water float the tree to the dam for us.”

“But there isn’t any water near here,” said Sniffy.

“No, but we can bring the water right here,” went on Mr. Beaver.

“How?” Toto wanted to know, for he and his brother were young beavers.

“We can dig a canal through the ground, and in that the water will come
right up to where we want it,” said Mr. Beaver. “We’ll dig out the dirt
right from under the tree, after we have cut it down, and bring the
canal to it. The canal will fill with water. The tree, being wood, will
float in the water, and a lot of us beavers, getting together, can swim
along and push and pull the tree through the canal right to the place
where we need it for the dam.”

“Are we going to learn how to dig canals, too?”

“Yes, building dams and canals and cutting down trees are the three
main things for a beaver to know,” said his father. “But learn one
thing at a time. Just now you are to learn how to cut down this tree.
Now gnaw your best――each of you!”

So Toto and Sniffy gnawed, taking turns, and their father helped them
when they were tired. Soon a deep, white ridge was cut in the side of
the tree.

“The tree is almost ready to fall now,” said Mr. Beaver. “You boys may
take a little rest, and I’ll finish the gnawing. But I want you to
watch and see how I do it. Thus you will learn.”

“May I go over there by the spring of water and get some sweet bark?”
asked Toto.

“Yes, I’ll wait for you,” answered his father. “I won’t finish cutting
the tree down until you come back.”

“Bring me some bark,” begged Sniffy, as he sat down on his broad, flat
tail.

“I will,” promised Toto.

The little beaver boy waddled away, and soon he was near an aspen tree.
Beavers like the bark from this tree better than almost any other. Toto
was gnawing away, stripping off some bark for his brother, when, all at
once, he heard a rustling sound in the bushes, and a big animal sprang
out and stood in front of Toto.

“Oh, dear me! It’s a bear!” cried Toto.

“No, I am not a bear,” answered the other animal. “Don’t be afraid of
me, little muskrat boy. I won’t hurt you.”

“I’m not a muskrat! I’m a beaver!” said Toto. “But who are you?”

“I am Don,” was the answer. “And I am a dog. Once I was a runaway dog,
but I am not a runaway any longer. But what are you doing here, beaver
boy?”

“Helping my father cut down a tree for the dam,” Toto answered. “What
are you doing, Don?”

“I am looking for a camp of tramps,” was the answer, the dog and beaver
speaking animal talk, of course. “A dog friend of mine said there was a
camp of tramps in these woods, and I want to see if I can find them,”
went on Don.

“What are tramps?” asked Toto.

“Ragged men with tin cans that they cook soup in,” answered Don. “Have
you seen any around here?”

“No, but Cuppy, the oldest beaver here, saw some ragged men over in the
woods,” began Toto. “Maybe they are――”

But before he could say any more he heard a loud thumping sound, and
Toto knew what that meant.

“Look out! There’s danger!” cried Toto.




CHAPTER IV

TOTO AND THE TRAMPS


Toto, the bustling beaver, ran as fast as he could and took shelter
under a big rock that made a place like a little cave on the side of
the hill.

“What’s the matter?” asked Don, the dog. “Are you afraid because I told
you about the tramps?”

“Oh, no,” answered Toto. “But didn’t you hear that thumping sound just
now?”

“Yes, I heard it,” answered Don. “What was it――somebody beating a
carpet?”

“I don’t know what a carpet is,” replied Toto. “We don’t have any at
our house. But, whatever it is, it wasn’t that. The noise you heard was
one of my beaver friends thumping his tail on the ground.”

“Oh, you mean wagging his tail!” barked Don. “Well, I do that myself
when I feel glad. I guess one of your beaver friends must feel glad.”

“No, it isn’t that,” went on Toto. “Whenever any of the beavers thumps
his tail on the ground it means there’s danger around, and all of us
who hear it run and hide. You’d better come under this rock with me.
Then you’ll be out of danger.”

Once more the thumping sound echoed through the woods.

“Better come under here with me,” advised Toto.

“Well, I guess I will,” barked Don.

No sooner was he under the big rock with Toto than, all of a sudden,
there was a loud crash, and a great tree fell almost on the place in
the woods where Toto and Don had been standing talking.

“My goodness!” barked Don, speaking as dogs do. “It’s a good thing we
were under this rock, Toto, or else that tree would have fallen on us!
Did you know it was going to fall?”

“Well, no, not exactly. My brother and I have been practicing on
gnawing a tree this morning, but ours isn’t cut down yet. My father is
going to finish cutting it, and show Sniffy and me how it is done. But
he promised not to cut all the way through until I got back. So I don’t
believe it was our tree that fell.”

“Is it all right for us to come out now?” asked Don. Though he was
older than the beaver boy, he felt that perhaps Toto knew more about
the woods――especially when tree-cutting was going on.

Toto sat up on his tail under the big rock and listened with his little
ears. He heard the beavers, which were all about, talking among
themselves, and he and Don heard some of them say:

“It’s all right now. Cuppy and Slump have cut down the big tree for the
dam. It has fallen, and now it is safe for us to come out.”

The dog and the little beaver came out from under the overhanging rock,
and Don noticed the pieces of bark Toto had stripped off.

“What are you going to do with them?” asked Don. “Make a basket?”

“A basket? I should say not!” exclaimed Toto. “I’m going to eat some
and take the rest to my father and brother. They are farther back in
the woods, cutting down a tree. Don’t you like bark?”

“Bark? I should say not!” laughed Don in a barking manner. “I like
bones to gnaw, but not bark, though I bark with my mouth. That is a
different kind, though. But I suppose it wouldn’t do for all of us to
eat the same things. There wouldn’t be enough to go around. But tell
me: Do you always hear a thumping sound whenever there is danger in the
woods?”

“Yes, that’s one of the ways we beavers have of talking to one
another,” answered Toto. “Whenever one of us is cutting a tree down,
and he sees that it is about to fall, he thumps on the ground as hard
as he can with his tail. You see our tails are broad and flat, and
they make quite a thump.”

Don turned and looked at Toto’s tail.

“Yes, it’s quite different from mine,” said the dog. “I sometimes thump
my tail on the floor, when my master gives me something good to eat or
pats me on the head. But my tail doesn’t make much noise.”

“Well, a beaver’s tail does,” explained Toto. “So whenever any of us
hear the thumping sound we know there is danger, and we run away or
hide.”

“I’m glad to know this,” said Don. “When I’m in the woods, from now on,
and hear that thumping sound, I’ll look around for danger, and I’ll
hide if I can’t get out the way. Well, I’m glad to have met you,” went
on Don. “I don’t suppose you have seen Blackie, have you?”

“Who is Blackie?” asked the beaver boy. “Is he another dog?”

“No, she’s a cat!” explained Don, with a laugh. “She’s quite a friend
of mine. She has a story all to herself in a book, and I have one, too.
I don’t suppose you were ever in a book, were you, Toto?”

“Did you say a _brook_?” asked the beaver boy. “Of course I’ve been in
a brook many a time. I even built a little dam across a brook once――I
and my brother Sniffy.”

“Ho, I didn’t say _brook_――I said _book_,” cried Don. “Of course I
don’t know much about such things myself, not being able to read. But a
book is something with funny marks in it, and boys and girls like them
very much.”

“Are they good to eat?” asked Toto.

“Oh, no,” answered Don, laughing.

“Then I don’t believe they can be very good!” said Toto, “and I don’t
care to be in a book.”

But you see he is in one, whether he likes it or not, and some day he
may be glad of it.

“Well, I must be going,” barked Don. “I want to see if I can find
that camp where the tramps live. Tramps are no good. They come around
the house where I live, near Blackie, the cat, and take our master’s
things. If I see the tramps I’m going to bark at them and try to drive
them away.”

Then he trotted on through the woods, and Toto, after eating a little
more bark, gathered some up in his paws, and, walking on his hind legs,
brought it to where his father and Sniffy were waiting for him.

“Here’s Toto,” said Sniffy.

“Where have you been?” asked Mr. Beaver.

“Oh, getting some sweet bark,” answered Toto, and he laid down on some
clean moss the strips he had pulled off. “I met a dog, too.”

“A dog!” cried Mr. Beaver. “My goodness, I hope he isn’t chasing after
you!” and he looked through the trees as if afraid.

“Oh, this was Don, a good dog,” explained Toto. “He’s only looking for
some tramps. He won’t hurt any beavers.”

“Well, if he’s a good dog, all right,” said the beaver daddy. “But
hunters’ dogs are bad――they’ll chase and bite you. I suppose they don’t
know any better.”

“Where were you when Cuppy whacked with his tail just before the big
tree fell?” asked Sniffy, as he nibbled at some of the tender bark his
brother had brought.

“Oh, Don and I hid under a big rock,” answered Toto. “I told him the
whacking sound meant danger. He didn’t know it. And it’s a good thing
we hid when we did, for the tree would have crushed us if we hadn’t
been under the rock. Is our tree ready to finish gnawing down, Daddy?”

“Yes,” answered Mr. Beaver. “You and Sniffy may start now, and cut a
little more. I’ll tell you when to stop.”

“But I thought you were going to finish, Dad,” said Sniffy.

“He will, Sniffy, if he said so. But he’s letting us help a little more
first so we can learn faster!”

[Illustration: Crash! Bang! went the big tree.]

So the beaver boys sat up on their tails again, and gnawed at the big
tree――the largest one they had ever helped to cut down. They gnawed and
gnawed and gnawed with their orange-colored front teeth, and then Mr.
Beaver said:

“That’s enough, boys. I’ll do the rest. But you may whack on the ground
with your tails to warn the others out of the way.”

So Toto and Sniffy, much delighted to do this, found a smooth place
near a big rock, and then they went:

“Whack! Whack! Whack!”

“Danger! Danger!” cried a lot of other beavers who were working near
by. “A tree is going to fall! Run, everybody! Danger!”

“See!” exclaimed Toto to his brother. “We can make the old beavers run
out of the way just as Cuppy made Don and me run.”

“Yes, you beaver boys are growing up,” said Mr. Beaver, who had waited
to see that his two sons gave the danger signal properly. “You are
learning very well. Now here goes the tree.”

He gave a few more bites, or gnaws, at the place where the tree was
almost cut through, and then Mr. Beaver himself ran out of the way.

“Crash! Bang!” went the big tree down in the forest. It broke down
several other smaller trees, and finally was stretched out on the
ground near the waters of Winding River.

“We helped do that!” said Toto to Sniffy, when the woods were again
silent.

“Yes, you have learned how to cut down big trees,” said their father.
“You are no longer playing beavers――you are working beavers. Now we
must dig the canal to float the tree nearer the dam, as it is too heavy
for us to roll or pull along, and we do not want to cut it.”

I will tell you, a little farther on, how the beavers cut canals to
float logs to the places where they want to use them. Just now all
I’ll say about them is that it took some time to get the tree Toto and
Sniffy had helped cut to the place where it was needed for the dam. The
two beaver boys and many others of the wonderful animals were busy for
a week or more.

Then, one day, when the tree was in place, Toto asked his mother if he
might go off into the woods and look for some more aspen bark, as all
that had been stored in the stick house had been eaten.

“Yes, you may go,” said Mrs. Beaver. “But don’t go too far, nor stay
too long.”

“I won’t,” promised Toto. Then he waddled off through the woods, after
having swum across the beaver pond, made by damming the river, and soon
he found himself under the green trees.

“I wonder if I’ll meet Don, the nice dog, or Whitie, the cat?” thought
Toto. “Let me see, was Whitie her name? No, it was Blackie. I wonder
if I’ll meet her, or that little girl who scared me so that day on the
ice?”

Toto looked off through the trees, but he saw neither Don nor Blackie.

Toto found a place where some aspen bark grew on trees, and he gnawed
off and ate as much as he wanted. Then he walked on a little farther
and, pretty soon, he saw something in the woods that looked like a big
beaver house. It was a heap of branches and limbs of trees, and over
the outside were big sheets and strips of rough bark.

“But that can’t be a beaver house,” thought Toto. “It isn’t near water,
and no beavers would build a house unless it had water near it. I
wonder what it is.”

Toto sat up on his tail and looked at the queer object. Then all at
once he heard rough voices speaking, and he saw some ragged men come
out of the pile of bark. One or two of them had tin cans in their
hands, and another was holding a pan over a fire that blazed on a flat
rock.

“Oh, I know who they are!” said Toto to himself. “These must be the
tramps Don was looking for. This is the tramp camp! I’ve found the bad
men. I wish I could find Don to tell him!”




CHAPTER V

TOTO SEES SOMETHING QUEER


Crouching down behind a green bush, Toto, the bustling beaver, kept
very quiet and watched the tramps. He was not at all bustling now,
however. He was not doing any work. Instead he was watching to see if
the tramps were going to do any work.

But you know better what tramps are than did Toto. Tramps, as a rule,
are men who don’t like to work. They are lazy, and wander about like
gypsies, living as best they can, putting up an old shack or a bark
cabin in the woods, as these tramps had done, boiling soup or stewing
something in a tomato can over a fire in the woods. Those are tramps.

“I wish I could find Don to tell him,” thought Toto. “These must be the
very tramps for whom he was looking.”

But though the beaver boy peered around among the trees he could not
see Don. The dog was not in that part of the woods just then.

The tramps, however, were in plain sight. Some were stretched out
on the soft moss beneath the trees. Others sat in the doorway of
the rough, bark house they had built, and still others were cooking
something over a fire.

“What a lot of hard work they have to do to get something to eat,”
thought Toto. “They have to make a fire, and fires are dangerous. I
don’t like them!”

Well might Toto say that, for he had heard his father and Cuppy tell of
fires in the forest that, in dry seasons, burned beaver dams and beaver
houses.

“We never have to make a fire when we are hungry,” thought Toto. “And
we don’t have to hunt for tin cans, to put in them our things to eat.
When I’m hungry all I have to do is to gnaw a little bark from a tree,
or eat some grass or some lily roots from the pond. I wouldn’t like to
be a tramp. That would be dreadful. I’d rather be a beaver.”

So Toto watched the tramps. He saw them make the fire bigger, and
noticed many of the ragged men holding over it tin cans which, later,
they ate from.

Then, as the day was warm and sunny, all the tramps stretched out under
the trees and went to sleep.

“Now would be a good time for Don to come along and scare them away,”
thought Toto. “I wish he would. It isn’t good to have a camp of tramps
so near our beaver dam. They may come and try to catch some of us.”

But Don, the dog, did not come, and after watching the ragged men for
a while Toto thought he had better start back home. He stripped off
some bark to take to his mother, who liked it very much, and then the
bustling beaver waddled along until he came to a stream of water. Into
this he jumped and swam the rest of the way, as that was easier than
walking, or “waddling” as I call it, for Toto was rather fat, and he
sort of “wobbled” as he walked.

“Well, did anything happen to you this time?” asked Mrs. Beaver, when
Toto reached home.

“It didn’t exactly happen to me,” he said. “But I saw the camp of
tramps Don was looking for.”

“Tramps! In our woods!” exclaimed Mr. Beaver, who came along just then.
He was coming home to supper, having been at work with Cuppy and the
others on the big dam. “Where did you see the tramps, Toto?”

The little beaver boy told his father, and that evening after they had
eaten all the beavers gathered out on the big dam which held back the
waters of the pond. It was a sort of meeting, and though it took place
nearly every night, it was not always as serious as was this one.

On other nights the beavers gathered to talk to one another, the older
ones looking to see that the dam was all right, and the younger ones,
like Toto and Sniffy, playing about.

But this evening there was very little playing. After a few holes in
the dam had been plastered shut with mud, which the beavers carried in
their forepaws, and not on their tails, as many persons think, Cuppy
whacked his tail on the ground. Every beaver grew silent on hearing
that.

“There is no special danger just now,” said Cuppy, speaking to all the
others. “I mean no tree is going to fall, or anything like that. But
there is likely to be trouble. Toto, tell us about the tramp camp you
saw in the woods.”

You may easily believe that Toto was quite surprised at being called
on to sit up and speak before all the other beavers in the colony. But
he was a smart little chap, and he knew that each one must help the
others. So he told what he had seen.

“And now,” said Cuppy, “what is to be done? We do not want these tramps
around here. Some of them may be hunters, and may try to catch us.
Others may tear out our dam, and that would be very bad for us, as the
water would all run out of our pond and our houses would be of no use.
Now we must either drive these tramps away, or else make our dam so big
and strong that they will not want to try to tear it apart.”

“How can we drive the tramps away?” asked Toto’s father.

“I don’t believe we can,” answered Cuppy. “If we were bears or wolves
we might, but, being beavers, we can’t very well do it. The next best
thing to do is to make our dam stronger. So to-morrow morning we must
all――young and old who can gnaw trees――we must all cut down as many
as we can and build the dam bigger. In that way we may be safe from
the tramps. Now remember――everybody come out to cut down trees in the
morning.”

“We can cut trees now, can’t we, Dad?” asked Toto of his father.

“Yes, you and Sniffy must do your share,” replied Mr. Beaver. “We must
all help one another.”

The woods around the dam were a busy place next morning. All the
beavers who were able began cutting down trees. Later the trees would
be floated in canals to the big pond and made a part of the wall that
held back the waters.

“Sniffy, do you want to come with me?” asked Toto of his brother, when
the two boys had, together, cut down a pretty good-sized tree.

“Where are you going?” asked Sniffy.

“Farther off into the woods,” answered Toto. “I know where there is
a nice, smooth, straight tree that we can cut down. It stands all
by itself, and when it falls it won’t lodge in among other trees, so
it will be easy to get out for the dam. Come, and we’ll cut it down
together.”

“All right, I will,” said Sniffy.

Now Toto did not tell his brother that the tree he intended gnawing
down was close to the camp of the tramps. Toto thought if he told his
brother that, Sniffy might be afraid to go.

“But we can keep hidden from the tramps,” thought Toto, “and our teeth
do not make much noise when we gnaw. The tramps will not hear us.
Besides, I want to see if they are still there. Maybe Don has barked at
them and driven them away.”

But when Toto and Sniffy reached the place in the woods where the tall
tree grew, there was the bark shack in the same place, and some of the
ragged men were still in and about it.

“Oh, look!” exclaimed Sniffy, catching sight of the tramps. “Who are
the ragged men, Toto? Are they hunters?”

“No,” answered Toto. And then he told his brother who the men were.
“But don’t be afraid,” went on Toto. “We’ll gnaw very silently, and the
tramps won’t know we are here. These are the ragged men I told about at
the meeting. But don’t be afraid, Sniffy.”

“All right. I won’t be afraid if you’ll stay with me,” said Sniffy.
“Now which tree are we going to cut, Toto?”

The other beaver showed his brother the tree he meant, and Sniffy said
it was a fine one.

“If we cut that down all by ourselves, it will help make the dam much
bigger,” he said. “But we can’t cut it in one day, Toto.”

“No, nor in two days,” answered the other. “It may take us a week. But
we can do it.”

After that, each day, Toto and Sniffy slipped off by themselves and
went to the place near the camp of the tramps. There the two beaver
boys gnawed and gnawed and gnawed away at the tree they were cutting
down. And they worked so quietly that none of the tramps heard them.

One day the big tall tree was almost cut through.

“We shall finish gnawing it down in about an hour,” said Sniffy.

“Yes,” agreed Toto, “it will soon fall.”

“And shall we whack on the ground with our tails to signal for danger?”
Sniffy wanted to know.

“We had better; yes,” agreed Toto. “We can’t tell but what some of the
other beavers may be around here, though I haven’t seen any.”

So the two boy animals gnawed and gnawed some more, and soon the tree
began to topple slowly to one side.

“There it goes!” cried Sniffy.

“Yes, it’s going to fall,” agreed Toto. “Whack with your tail as hard
as you can! Whack your tail!”

Toto and Sniffy banged their flat tails on the ground. It was the
beavers’ signal for danger. Then Toto and Sniffy ran and hid in a
hollow place under a big stump. But they could look out and see the
tree leaning over farther and farther as it toppled to the earth.

Suddenly Toto cried:

“Look! The tree is going to fall right on the place where the tramps
live! It is going to fall on their house and it will be smashed!”

And so it was. The beaver boys had forgotten about the shack of the
tramps when they gnawed at the tree. Now it was toppling over directly
on the bark cabin. Toto and his brother were going to see something
very queer happen.

“Bang with your tail! Bang with your tail, and give the danger signal
to the tramps!” cried Toto.

And he and Sniffy whacked away as hard as they could.




CHAPTER VI

TOTO AND THE BURGLARS


Now, the tramps who had built the shack of bark in the woods knew
nothing about beavers and their ways. The tramps did not know that when
a beaver whacks his tail on the ground it means danger from a falling
tree, or from something else.

But the tramps in the shack, toward which was falling the tree Toto and
Sniffy had gnawed down――these tramps heard the queer whacking sounds,
and they knew they had never heard them before. So some of them, who
were not as lazy as the others, ran out to see what it meant.

One tramp looked up and saw the tall tree swaying down toward the bark
shelter. The tramp did not know that two little beaver boys had, all
alone, gnawed down the big tree. But the tramp could see it falling.

“Come on! Get out! Everybody out of the shack!” cried the tramp who saw
the falling tree. “Everybody out! The whole woods are falling down on
us!”

Of course that wasn’t exactly so. It was only one tree that was
falling, and the same one which Toto and Sniffy had gnawed down. But
the tramp who called out was so excited he hardly knew what he was
saying.

And as soon as the other tramps, some of whom were sleeping in the
bark shack, heard the calls, they came running out, some rubbing their
eyes, for they were hardly awake. They had been asleep in the daytime,
too――the daytime when all the beavers were busy.

“Come on! Come on! Get out! Everybody out!” yelled the tramp who had
first caught sight of the falling tree.

As soon as the others knew what the danger was, out they rushed also,
and then they all stood outside the shack and to one side and watched
the tree crash down.

Right on top of the bark cabin crashed the tree. There was a
splintering of wood, a breaking of branches, a big noise, and then it
was all over.

For a few minutes the tramps said nothing. They all stood looking at
the fallen tree that had crushed their home in the woods.

“Well!” exclaimed several of the men.

“It’s a good thing we got out in time,” growled one tramp.

“I should say so!” exclaimed another. “Lucky you saw it coming,” he
added to the tramp who had called the warning.

“Did some one chop the tree down?” asked a third tramp.

“No, I guess the wind blew it,” said a fourth.

“There isn’t enough wind to blow a tree down,” decided the first tramp,
who had red hair.

Of course we know it wasn’t the wind that blew the tree down. It was
Toto and Sniffy who gnawed it and made it fall. But the tramps were too
lazy to go and see what had caused the tree to topple over. They just
stood there and looked at their crushed house.

“It will be a lot of work to build that up again,” said one tramp.
“She’s smashed flat.”

“Build it up again! I’m not going to help build it up!” said another.
“It’s too hard. I’m tired of this place, anyhow. Let’s move off to
another woods. Maybe we can find a place near a chicken yard, and we
can have all the chickens we want. Let’s move away, now that our house
is smashed.”

“Yes, let’s do that!” cried some of the other tramps.

And those ragged men were so lazy that they did not want to go to the
trouble of building a home for themselves! Perhaps they thought they
could go off into the woods and find another already built. Anyhow,
they stood around a little while longer. One or two of them picked up
ragged coats and hats that were in the ruins of the hut, and some took
old cans in which they heated soup. That was all they had to move.

“Well, come on! Let’s hike along!” said the red-haired tramp.

With hardly a look back at what had been a home for some of them for a
long time, the tramps walked away through the woods. Toto and Sniffy,
hiding in the bushes, watched the ragged men go.

“Look what we did!” said Sniffy to his brother.

“Yes, we cut down a tree, but we didn’t mean to make it fall on the
house where the tramps lived,” said Toto.

“Anyhow, they’re going away, and that’s a good thing for us,” went on
Sniffy. “Now we won’t have to make the dam so strong, nor move away
ourselves.”

“That’s so,” agreed Toto. “I didn’t think about that. Why, Sniffy, we
really drove the tramps away, didn’t we?”

“Yes,” answered his brother, “we did.”

“Don, the dog, will be glad to know this,” went on Toto. “I guess
he’ll wish he had helped drive the tramps away himself. Come on! let’s
go back and tell Dad and Mr. Cuppy about cutting down the tree and
smashing the tramps’ cabin.”

Mr. Beaver, Cuppy, and all the others in the colony were much surprised
when Toto and Sniffy told what had happened. Almost all the grown
animals, and certainly every one of the boys and girls, went out to
see the fallen tree and the smashed cabin.

“Well, you did a lot to help us,” said Cuppy to the two brothers; “but
we can’t use that tree in the dam.”

“Why not?” asked Toto.

“Because it fell the wrong way. It would be too much work to dig a
canal to it and float it to the dam. It will be easier to cut down
another tree. But I don’t know that we shall need any more as long as
the tramps have moved away. We need not make our dam any bigger now.”

“Are all the tramps gone?” asked Toto’s mother.

“Yes, every one,” answered Cuppy. He was a wise old beaver, and he knew
none of the ragged men were left near what had once been their shack of
bark.

So that was another adventure Toto had――driving away the tramps. And if
I had told you, at first, that two little beavers, not much bigger than
small puppy dogs, could make a number of big, lazy men move, you would
hardly have believed me. But it only goes to show in what a strange way
things happen in the woods.

[Illustration: Everybody in the beaver colony had work to do.]

Now that it was not needful to make the dam bigger, the beavers turned
to other work. Some of the canals they had dug had become filled up at
a time when there was too much rain and the banks had caved in. Some
of the beavers began to clear out these canals. Others mended holes in
the dam, and still others cut down, and brought to the pond, tender
branches of trees on which grew soft bark for the small beaver children
to eat.

Everybody in the beaver colony had work to do. There was not a lazy one
among them, and Toto and Sniffy worked as hard as any. They had time to
play, too, and I’ll tell you about that in another chapter or two. Just
now I want to speak about another wonderful adventure that happened to
Toto.

The little beaver boy was growing larger now. He was quite strong for
his size, and he was growing wiser every day. Often he went off in the
woods alone to hunt for tender bark, or perhaps for some berries he
liked to eat.

One day Toto was walking along near a canal he had helped to dig. He
was thinking of Don, and wishing he might meet the nice dog again, and
tell him about the tramps being driven away. And Toto was also thinking
of the little girl with the red mittens, whose skate had come off on
the ice.

Then, as Toto stepped from the woods into a little clearing, or place
where no trees grew, he saw something big――bigger than a thousand
beaver houses made into one.

“I wonder what that is?” thought Toto. “It looks something like the
shack the tramps had in the woods, but it is much nicer. I wonder if it
is a house?”

And then as Toto, hidden behind a bush, watched, he saw a little girl
and an old lady come out of the house (for such it was) and walk away
through the woods on a path.

“Why! Why!” exclaimed Toto to himself. “That’s the same little girl I
saw on the ice! Only she’s different now. She hasn’t any red things on
her paws.”

Of course, Toto thought the little girl’s hands were her paws. And the
“red things” were her mittens. But, as it was summer now, she did not
wear mittens. It really was the little girl who had been skating that
Toto now saw come out of the house in the woods. The little girl had
come to get her grandmother and take her for a visit to the little
girl’s house.

Toto stayed hiding under the bush until the little girl and her
grandmother were out of sight. Then, just as he was about to travel on,
he heard some voices coming from behind a big stump. And, somehow or
other, Toto seemed to know those voices. Carefully he looked up over
the top of the bush.

“Now’s our chance!” said one of the voices, though of course Toto did
not know what the words meant. “Now’s our chance! The old lady and the
little girl have gone out! Now we can break into the house and take
whatever we want!”

“Yes, we might as well be burglars while we’re at it,” said another
voice. “We can’t get any work, so we’ll take things that other people
work for!”

And then, to the surprise of Toto, he saw, bobbing up from behind the
stump, some of the very same ragged tramps that had gone away when
the tree smashed their shack. They were now near the home of Millie’s
grandmother.

“I heard there was some jewelry in that house,” said the red-haired
tramp. “We can take it and sell it and then we can buy good things to
eat.”

“That’s right,” said a black-haired one. “We’ll break in and get the
jewelry. Nobody is at home to stop us.”

And then and there, as Toto watched, the bad tramps went toward the
house to take the little girl’s grandmother’s jewelry.

“Oh, if Don were only here now!”




CHAPTER VII

TOTO AND THE BOY


Toto, being only a beaver, did not know very much about the different
things that men do. Toto knew how to gnaw down trees, how to strip off
bark when he was hungry, how to dig canals for the water to run in and
float logs for the dam, and he knew how to help make dams. But he never
thought of going into another beaver’s house and taking the bark which
that beaver had stored away.

And now these men were going into the house of the little girl’s
grandmother, and they were going after jewelry which had been hidden
by the old lady when she went away on a little visit with her
granddaughter. But Toto knew nothing of this. All he knew was that he
was hiding behind a bush, watching the tramps steal softly toward the
lonely house.

One of the tramps, the red-haired one, broke open the door of the
grandmother’s house. It was just the same as if Sniffy and Toto should
break into the house of Mr. Cuppy, when that kind old gentleman beaver
was out working on the dam. Into the house went the tramps――four of
them, big, ragged men.

“I hope they don’t see me,” thought Toto, for he knew it was dangerous
to be where he was. His father and mother had told him to keep away
from men who had traps and guns. And though these tramps were too lazy
to do any hunting or shooting, Toto did not know that.

Really he ought not to have been so far away from home, but you know
how it is with boys――even animal boys. Beavers sometimes don’t do the
right thing, any more than real boys do. So, though he felt that there
was danger, Toto wanted to stay near and watch.

He saw the tramps break into the house, but of course he did not see
what they did when they got inside, so I shall have to tell you that
part of the story myself.

The tramps easily broke open the door and got inside. The first thing
they did was to look for something to eat, for, being lazy men, they
did not work, and all the food they had was what they stole or begged.
And as Millie’s grandmother was a good cook, there was plenty in her
house to eat. The tramps had a fine meal, and they then looked about
for something to take away with them.

Millie’s grandmother was not rich, but she had some gold and silver
jewelry put away in a box in her home. Some of the rings and pins were
those Millie’s grandmother had had since she was a little girl herself,
and there was one pretty bracelet that Mrs. Norman (which was the
grandmother’s name), had promised to give Millie.

Mrs. Norman had hidden her box of jewelry under the bed when she went
out, thinking that would be a safe place. But, would you believe it?
That was one of the first places the tramps looked when they finished
their meal.

“Ho! Ho!” laughed the tramps. “Here it is!”

With their coarse, rough hands they broke open the box, for the lock
was not strong. Inside glittered the gold and silver jewelry of Mrs.
Norman, and the sun sparkled on the pretty bracelet that was to be
Millie’s.

“Ho! Ho!” laughed the tramps. “This will bring us money when we sell
it!”

The tramps were looking at the jewelry in the box when, all at once,
the red-haired one cried:

“Hark! I hear some one coming! We’d better run!”

“Come on!” exclaimed another.

So the next thing Toto, the watching beaver, saw was tramps come
rushing from the house. Toto did not know what the tramps had done
in the house, but he saw them come rushing out, the red-haired one
carrying a small box. Of course Toto did not know what was in the box.
Beavers have no use for jewelry.

“Come on!” cried the red-haired tramp. “Come on! Maybe the police are
after us!”

And so the tramps ran across the fields towards the woods where they
had built themselves another shack. And these woods were not far from
those where Toto and the other beavers lived, near the dam.

Now the noise which had scared the tramps was made by a boy knocking at
the side door of the house where Millie’s grandmother lived. This boy,
whose name was Bobbie Thompson, had been sent by his mother to borrow
a cup of sugar from Mrs. Norman. Bobbie’s mother lived almost half a
mile from Millie’s grandmother, and as there were very few stores in
that part of the country the neighbors used to borrow things from one
another. So Bobbie’s mother had sent him to borrow some sugar.

Bobbie did not know that Millie and her grandmother had gone out, and
he did not know that tramps were in the house, when he knocked at the
side door. And it was his knocking that had scared the ragged men.

Out of the front door of the house they rushed, and, as they hurried
away, Bobbie, who was a sturdy little chap, saw them go.

“Hello there! What’s this?” cried Bobbie, who was very much surprised.
“What’s this?”

Then, as he saw what kind of men they were and that one of them had the
box of jewelry under his arm, Bobbie understood.

“Tramps! Tramps!” cried Bobbie. “I wish I had my dog with me now! Those
tramps have been robbing Mrs. Norman!”

Bobbie stood on the side steps a few seconds, watching the tramps run
across the field. Then, being a brave boy, he decided to run after
them. I don’t believe Bobbie really thought he could catch the tramps,
nor that he hoped he could get the box of jewelry away from them if he
did catch them. He just wanted to see where they went, so he could tell
the police.

“Hi there! Come back with that box!” called Bobbie, and then he began
to run. Off the steps he jumped, dropping the cup which he had come to
get filled with sugar. He had forgotten all about that now.

After the tramps he ran, shouting and calling to them, and the queer
part of it was that the tramps did not look back to see who was after
them. They were too frightened, as they knew they had done wrong and
could be arrested for it.

“Are the police after us?” asked one tramp.

“Yes, I guess so,” answered the red-haired one who had the jewel box.
“We’d better hide this stuff, too! If they catch us with it we’ll have
to go to jail. We’ll hide it as soon as we get to the woods!”

And so the tramps ran on, never once looking back. If they had looked
back they would have seen it was only a small boy chasing them, and not
two or three policemen. But that is often the way with persons who do
wrong. Their own fears scare them.

“Hi there! Hold on! Stop!” cried Bobbie. But the tramps did not stop.
They only ran the faster toward the woods. And, finally reaching the
forest, the red-haired tramp looked around for a place to hide the box
of jewelry.

“I’ll put it in this hollow tree!” he said to the other tramps, as,
reaching a big chestnut tree, he saw a hole in the trunk. “I’ll hide
the jewelry here and, when the police go, we can come back and get it
out again.”

So he thrust the box of gold and silver jewelry, with Millie’s bracelet
in it, into the hollow of the tree. Then the tramps ran on through
the woods, and scattered, some going one way and some another, still
thinking the police were after them.

But it was only Bobbie, and the little boy, seeing that the tramps were
fast running away from him, soon gave up the chase.

“I guess I’ll go back to Millie’s grandmother’s house,” said Bobbie
to himself. “Maybe she’s come back. If she has I’ll get the sugar and
tell her about the tramps. If she isn’t at home I’ll go and tell my
mother.”

Now all this time Toto was wondering what it all meant. He had seen the
bad, ragged tramps break into the house, and he had seen them rush out,
and Bobbie chasing after them. But the beaver did not know what it was
all about. However, being very curious, as are most wild animals, Toto
wanted to find out. So when Bobbie began to run Toto slowly followed
after, taking care, however, to keep in the shadow of the bushes and
trees.

Thus it happened that when Bobbie turned back, after he had lost sight
of the tramps in the woods, he saw Toto ambling along.

“Hello! A beaver!” cried Bobbie. “I haven’t seen one of them for a long
while! I’m going to get him! I’ll take him home for a pet!”

And then, running as fast as he could, Bobbie chased after Toto,
wishing to catch our little friend with the broad, flat tail.

“My goodness!” thought Toto as he saw Bobbie coming. “I’d better run!”




CHAPTER VIII

TOTO MEETS BLACKIE


By this time Bobbie had forgotten all about the tramps who took the
jewelry. He was thinking only of catching Toto.

“Oh ho! You’re a fine, fat one!” laughed Bobbie. “I’d like you for a
pet!”

“I’ve got to get away as fast as I can!” thought Toto. “I wish I had
not come so far from the dam and the water back of it. If I could find
some deep water now I’d dive into it and this boy chap couldn’t find
me. I’d stay under a long time.”

But, just then, Toto could see no water near him, though he remembered
he had swum in a brook almost up to the house into which the tramps had
broken to get food and the box of jewelry.

“If I could only find that brook now!” thought poor Toto.

“I’ll get you! I’ll get you!” cried the boy. Of course Toto did not
know what these words meant any more than the boy could understand
beaver talk. But Toto knew he was in danger, and the boy knew the
little animal, with the flat tail, was trying to get away.

Now Toto could smell water even when he could not see it. His nose was
very good for smelling, and, as he ran along――or rather “waddled,” as I
call it――he kept sniffing to see if he could not smell water somewhere.
And at last he did. Off to his left he caught the smell he so much
wanted, and he turned sharply to one side.

“I wonder where he’s going now,” said the boy, aloud. “Maybe he has a
nest over there. No, beavers don’t live in nests, so Jake told me. They
have their houses in the water near a dam. I wish I could find a beaver
dam. Then I could get two beavers for pets.”

Bobbie did not know how hard it was to capture beavers once those busy
animals are in the water.

“I’ll get him! I’ll get that beaver!” cried the boy.

“If I can only get to the water I’ll be all right!” thought poor Toto,
whose heart was beating very fast, both in fear and because he had to
hurry along so quickly.

Just as the beaver reached the edge of the little stream Bobbie got
there too, and made a grab for Toto. So close was Bobbie to Toto that
the boy could almost touch the flat tail of our friend. But Toto gave
a jump, and into the water he landed, making a great splash. Down, down
toward the bottom dived Toto, and at once he began to swim under water,
for beavers can do that, just as muskrats can. Of course they are not
like a fish, who has to stay under water all the while, and can not
breathe in the open air. Beavers, and animals like that, can hold their
breath a long while under water, and so can stay hidden and out of
sight.

“Oh, there he goes!” cried Bobbie, much disappointed as he saw Toto
dive into the stream. “But maybe I can get him!”

The boy ran along the bank of the stream, but Toto knew better than
even to stick out so much as the tip of his nose. The beaver did not
need to do this. He could swim under water for quite a long time, and
that’s what he was doing now. His hind feet were webbed, like those
of a duck, and his broad, flat tail helped him, too. It was like the
propeller of a boat. In a half minute he was far enough away from
Bobbie to be safe, and, though the boy ran along the stream for several
minutes, he did not again see Toto――that is not for some days. Toto had
got safely away, and, half an hour later, he was back at the dam, where
he found his father and his mother and Sniffy waiting for him.

“Where have you been?” asked Mr. Beaver. “You were gone so long that I
thought something had happened.”

“Something did happen,” answered Toto. “A boy chased me, and I saw the
ragged men――the tramps as Don, the dog, called them!”

“My goodness!” exclaimed Mrs. Beaver. “Chased by a boy! Did he catch
you?”

“No, I got away just in time,” answered Toto.

“I hope those tramps aren’t coming to our woods again,” said Mr. Beaver.

“Well, they ran in among the trees,” said Toto, “and they stopped at a
hollow one, put something in there, and then they ran on.”

“Maybe they hid a lot of bark in the hollow tree,” said Sniffy. For a
beaver, you know, bark is the best thing there is in the world. It is
better to him than jewelry ever could be.

“I don’t know what it was they hid,” said Toto. “But the boy chased
them and then he chased me.”

“You must always be careful,” warned his father. “These woods are too
often visited by hunter men and boys these days. Watch out for traps.”

Toto and Sniffy said they would, and then the beaver boys went out on a
little hill, near the pond back of the dam, to have some fun. And the
fun they had was sliding downhill!

I suppose it may sound odd to you to be told that beavers slide
downhill, but they really do, and other wild animals in the woods do
the same thing. They don’t wait for snow and ice to cover the hill,
either, as you boys and girls do. In fact, most animals do not like
snow and ice――unless perhaps it is polar bears――and when winter comes
many animals take a long sleep until warm weather comes again.

Of course Toto and the other beavers have to stand the cold, and
perhaps be out in the ice and snow, and that is why they have such a
thick, warm coat of fur.

But the sliding downhill fun I am going to tell you about took place
in the summer, and I suppose you are wondering how any one can slide
downhill when there is no snow or ice.

Well, the beavers slide down on mud. You know how slippery mud is when
it is wet. And there is a kind of mud, called “clay,” which is very
slippery indeed. If you have ever been near a brickyard, and have seen
the clay dug out and wet, you know how slippery it is. It is even more
slippery than snow or ice.

Now near the beaver pond was a hill of clay, and some of it had been
taken by Cuppy and the older animals to plaster up holes in the dam.
This digging out of the clay, made a bare place on the hill, where the
grass was torn away, leaving the soil exposed.

This clay slide was where Toto, Sniffy and the other beavers had their
fun. And not only the young beavers, but the old ones as well, even
Cuppy, took their turns going down the slide. Otters also make slippery
slides to coast down, and I have even heard that big bears, when they
can find a place, like to slide downhill.

The animals do this not only for fun, but to keep their muscles and
legs limber and strong. It is their exercise, just as you raise your
arms and bend your bodies in school when you take your exercise.

Now to be slippery, clay has to be wet. And, as it would not do to wait
for a rain to come to wet the slide, the beavers, otters, and other
animals wet the slides themselves. They go into the water at the foot
of the slide, get themselves soaking wet, climb out and go to the top
of the hill. There they sit down and the water, dripping from their
bodies, makes the hill slippery. Down they go, splashing into the
stream or the pond at the foot. Almost all the slides end in water.

“Come on out and slide down!” called Toto to Sniffy, and away they ran.
They climbed up the hill at a place where it was not slippery and,
taking turns, sat down at the top of the slide. Then, giving themselves
a little push with their paws, as you give yourself a push with your
feet when you sit on your sled, down they went.

Sometimes the beavers slid down on their tails, and sometimes on their
backs. Some even slid down on their stomachs, or went down sideways.
Down they went, any way to get a slide, and into the water they
splashed.

“Hi there! Look out!” cried Toto to Dumple, a little fat beaver boy who
lived in the stick house next to him. “Look out! I’m coming!”

But Dumple did not get out of the way quickly enough, and when Toto
slid down he bumped right into him, and the beaver chaps went down the
slide together and into the water with a splash.

“Ho! Ho! That was fun! Let’s do it again,” cried Dumple.

“All right!” agreed Toto. “But did I hurt you?”

“Not a bit!” laughed Dumple. “Come on, Sniffy! Let’s bump into one
another on the slide!” he called.

So Toto’s brother joined the fun, and many other beavers played on the
slide, climbing up and coasting down.

When supper time came Toto and the others had very good appetites for
the bark which was waiting for them. Darkness came, and the beavers
went to sleep. The night settled down on the beaver pond and dam.
As Toto went to sleep perhaps he thought of the adventures of that
day――how he had seen the boy chase the tramps, and how the ragged men
had hidden something in the hollow tree. But Toto did not think much
about that. He was too tired and sleepy after playing on the mud slide.

It was two or three days after this that, as our beaver friend was
walking through the woods, looking for some soft bark for his mother,
he heard a funny little noise up in a tree. The noise went:

“Mew! Mew! Meaouw!”

“Hello! what’s that?” called Toto, looking here and there. “Is anything
the matter?” he asked.

“I should say there was!” came the answer. “A bad dog chased me up this
tree and now I’m afraid to come down.”

“Who are you?” asked Toto.

“I am Blackie, and once I was a lost cat,” was the answer. “I guess I’m
pretty nearly lost now. Oh, dear! what shall I do?”

[Illustration: “I’ll help you down out of the tree,” said Toto
cheerfully.]




CHAPTER IX

TOTO IN A TRAP


Toto looked up in the tree from which the mewing noise came. There he
saw a black cat. The cat sat in a place where a branch joined the main
trunk of the tree, and Toto wondered why, if she got up there, she
could not get down.

“What happened to you?” asked the beaver boy.

“A dog chased me,” was the answer. “I was out walking in the fields,
and a dog ran along after me. I was so frightened that I scampered as
fast as I could. Then I ran up this tree. I hardly knew what I was
doing, or how I got up so high. But here I am, and though it seemed
easy to get up, I’m afraid to try to get down. I might slip and fall.”

“Did you walk up the tree?” asked Toto, wondering why she couldn’t walk
down again.

“No, I stuck my claws into the bark and pulled myself up,” answered the
black cat. “But it’s harder to go down. I don’t know what to do! I wish
that dog had let me alone.”

“Was the dog who chased you named Don?” asked Toto. “I know him.”

“Do you? Why, so do I!” exclaimed Blackie. “No, it wasn’t Don who
chased me. He and I are good friends. This was a strange dog, and I
don’t like him. He has made a lot of trouble for me. Maybe I’ll never
get out of this tree, and I’ll never again see the kind lady and little
girl I live with.”

“Oh, yes, you will!” said Toto cheerfully. “I’ll help you get down out
of the tree.”

“Can you climb up here?” asked Blackie.

“No, I can’t climb trees, but I can gnaw them down,” answered the
beaver boy. “You just wait. This is a poplar tree, and the bark is very
good to eat. You just wait up there. I’ll gnaw through the tree, it
will fall, and you can then easily get to the ground.”

“But when the tree falls won’t I get hurt?” asked Blackie.

“No, for I’ll cut the tree so it will fall in among the bushes,”
answered Toto, who, by this time, could make a tree fall in any
direction he liked. “The bushes will be a sort of cushion, like the
cushion of soft grass and chips in our stick house.”

Toto took his position at the foot of the tree, half way up in which
was Blackie, the cat. Propping himself up on his tail, and clasping his
forepaws around the trunk of the tree, which was about as large around
as a rolling pin, Toto began to gnaw.

In a few minutes Toto had almost cut through the trunk.

“Oh, the tree is beginning to fall!” mewed Blackie.

“That’s what I want it to do,” answered Toto. “Don’t be afraid. Sit
tight! You will not be hurt.”

The tree was swaying slightly, for the trunk had almost been cut
through by the hard-working beaver boy. But he had cut it in the proper
way, and it was falling toward a clump of thick bushes.

Blackie dug her claws into the soft bark and held on as tightly as
she could. She was a little afraid, but she need not have been, for
Toto knew what he was about. Very slowly and gently the tree swayed
over. It fell among the bushes with hardly a crash, the boughs and the
underbrush making a cushion. And now the trunk was so close to the
ground that Blackie easily leaped down.

“Oh, thank you, very much, for helping me,” she mewed to Toto. “I
thought I’d never get down, or see my kind lady mistress again. She is
very sad these days, and if she lost me she would be more sad.”

“What is she sad about?” asked Toto.

“Because her house was broken into the other day by some bad men, she
thinks,” explained Blackie. “They took away a box of jewelry she had
hidden under the bed. And in the box was a bracelet for a nice little
girl. This little girl pets me and gives me milk when she comes to see
her grandmother, with whom I now live. And sometimes I go to stay at
the little girl’s house.”

“Why, how surprising!” exclaimed Toto. “I think I know the house you
mean! I saw some ragged men go in there and come out with a box. A boy
chased them and then the boy chased me.”

“What did the men do with the box?” asked Blackie. “Oh, how exciting!
Maybe we can find it and make my mistress happy again.”

Toto slowly flapped his flat tail.

“The men went into the woods with the box,” he said. “That is all I
know.”

“What woods?” asked Blackie.

“Well, the woods not very far from here,” answered the beaver.

“I wish I could find the box,” mewed Blackie. “I don’t care for jewelry
myself, though I like a red ribbon tied on my neck, as the little girl
sometimes ties it. But if I could find the box of jewelry it would make
Millie and her grandmother happy.”

“I wish I could help you,” said Toto. “But I don’t know where the box
is. But tell me about Don. Have you seen him lately? He wanted to
catch the tramps.”

“No, I haven’t seen Don for some time,” explained Blackie. “He lives in
another house with a boy, and sometimes this boy comes to see Millie’s
grandmother. The old lady is his grandmother, too. Don and I are good
friends.”

“He is a nice dog,” said Toto. “Well, as long as I have cut down this
tree I may as well eat some of the bark. Will you have some?”

“No, thank you,” answered Blackie. “I don’t eat bark, I drink milk.”

“Bark is better,” said the beaver. “But I suppose it wouldn’t do for us
all to eat the same thing. There wouldn’t be enough. Now, do you know
your way home?”

“Oh, yes, I can find my way back across the fields to the house where I
live,” said the cat. “I hope the tramps don’t come again. But call and
see me sometime.”

“Thank you,” answered Toto. “I will. But I don’t go out in the fields
much. It is safer for us beavers in the woods near the water.”

“I don’t like water,” said the black cat. “But thank you once more for
getting me down out of the tree. I’ll tell Don, the next time I see
him, how kind you are to me.”

“Remember me to him,” begged Toto.

“I will!” mewed Blackie. Then she walked off toward the field, and
Toto began to eat some of the poplar bark.

You remember I told you I would put in this story something about how
beavers dig canals to float the logs they cut down to the dam. And I
guess this is a good place for that.

With their paws the beavers dig a ditch in the dirt, starting it from
the place where the fallen tree lies, and heading it toward the waters
of their pond. The beavers are fast diggers, too, almost as fast as
they are gnawers, and many of them, working together, will dig a little
canal in a few days. They take out the dirt and stones, placing them
to one side. They carry the dirt and stones out of their way in their
front paws.

Foot by foot the canal, which is yet only a dry ditch in the ground,
is brought to the edge of the beaver pond. Then the little animals cut
through the remaining wall of earth, so the water from the pond flows
into the canal. The water goes all the way back to where the big tree
trunk lies on the bank of the little canal. The beavers now, pushing
all together, roll the heavy log into the canal which, after this, can
easily be floated through the canal to the beaver pond, and used to
make the dam bigger and stronger.

One day Mr. Beaver called out and said:

“Come on, Toto and Sniffy. You must help Cuppy and some of the others
dig canals to-day. It will soon be winter again, and we want to get a
lot of wood and bark stored away before cold weather comes.”

Beavers do not sleep all through the winter as bears, and some other
animals, do. The beavers stay awake, move about, and have to eat. So
they need plenty of food.

“Digging canals is fun!” laughed Toto. “I like it; don’t you, Sniffy?”

“Yes,” answered his brother, “I do. Here comes Dumple!” he added.
“Let’s have some fun with him!”

So the three beaver boys tumbled about on the ground as they went along
to where the canal was being dug. There they found Cuppy and many other
animals at work, for several large trees had been cut down, and they
must be floated in canals to the dam.

Each of the beaver boys was given a certain part of the work to do, and
Toto was soon busy with the others. Foot by foot the canal was dug.

Now of course beaver boys don’t like to work all the while, any more
than real boys do, and Toto was a real beaver boy. So, after he had
dug a bit, he looked around, and, seeing no one near him, he said to
himself:

“I’m going to see if I can’t find some willow bark to eat. Somehow
to-day I seem to want a bit of willow bark.”

He climbed out of the canal, which had no water in as yet, and walked,
or waddled, off through the woods. And soon Toto was going to have an
adventure that was not a nice one.

He was walking along, thinking of what fun he would have that evening
on the mud slide, when, all at once, he seemed to smell something very
good. It was a piece of apple, and Toto had not eaten an apple for many
days, as none grew in the woods.

“Oh, how good that is!” he exclaimed. “Some one must have dropped it
here under the trees.”

Toto looked about and sniffed until he saw a small, red apple. It
seemed to be on top of a little pile of leaves.

“Oh, how good!” cried Toto. He walked up to the apple, and then, all of
a sudden, something happened! There was a clicking sound, and Toto felt
a pain in his leg. Then he knew what it was.

“Oh, dear, I’m caught in a trap!” cried the beaver boy.




CHAPTER X

TOTO ON A BOAT


True enough, Toto, the bustling beaver, was caught in a trap. Some one
had set the trap in the woods, covering it over with dried leaves so
it could not be seen. And an apple had been put near the trap, so that
it would attract, or call by its smell, some animal. And Toto was that
animal.

“Snap!” had gone the jaws of the trap, closing together on Toto’s leg,
and the beaver boy was in great pain.

“Oh, dear! Ouch! Oh, let me go!” cried Toto, in beaver talk. But the
trap did not let him go, and, pull as he did, Toto could not get loose.

After struggling for a while, pulling this way and that, and still
feeling himself held fast, Toto grew quiet and lay down on the dried
leaves.

He had pulled the trap out into plain view now, and he could see where
the steel jaws were shut fast on his leg. Toto was glad of one thing,
and this was that the jaws of the trap were not sharp and jagged like a
barbed wire fence. Some traps, Toto knew, were made with iron teeth in
them, and when they fastened on an animal’s leg they cut into it. This
trap was an easier kind.

“If the trap wasn’t fast to a chain, and the chain fast to a stump, I
could pull the trap along with me, and maybe Cuppy and my father could
get it loose from my leg,” thought Toto. But the boy who had set the
trap had known that any animal which got caught in it would try to pull
it away, so he had made it fast to a stump. All the pulling Toto did
would not loosen the trap.

“Well, I’m caught, and that’s all there is to it,” thought poor Toto.
“I can’t get loose, but maybe if I could call some of the other
beavers they could help me,” he went on. He knew that to call the
other beavers, or to warn them of danger, he must flap his tail on
the ground. If he had been near water he would have flapped it on the
water, and it would have made a louder sound. But he was away from the
water and had to do the best he could.

Thump! Thump! Thump! went Toto’s tail on the ground. His tail was not
caught in the trap, and he was glad of that. Thump! Thump! Thump! went
his tail again. Then Toto listened. But none of the other beavers came
to help him.

After a while the pain in his leg was not quite so bad. He was sure the
bone was not broken, and he was glad of that.

“But what is going to happen to me?” thought Toto. “Dad always told me
to be careful and keep away from traps, and here I have gone and walked
right into one!

“But that apple did smell so good!” went on Toto. “I just couldn’t help
wanting it!” He had managed to get one bite of the apple before the
trap snapped shut on his leg. And now, as he saw the fruit lying near
him, Toto thought he might as well eat the rest of it, which he did.

Hardly had he finished eating when he heard a noise in the bushes and
among the leaves, and he knew some one was coming. Toto’s heart beat
very fast, and, as any wild animal would have done, he tried to get
away, forgetting, for the moment, that he was held fast by the trap. A
tug at the chain and a pain in his leg brought to his mind that he was
still a prisoner, and he fell back among the leaves.

And then through the bushes came a boy. In an instant he saw Toto in
the trap.

“Oh, I’ve caught a beaver! I’ve caught a beaver!” cried the boy,
jumping up and down.

The boy walked toward Toto. Once again the little animal tried to get
away, but the chain and trap held him. The beaver crouched down in the
leaves and the boy put out his hand to stroke his fur.

Toto showed his orange-colored teeth, opening his lips as a dog does
when he snarls. Toto knew he could bite and bite hard, and that was all
he thought of now.

“Oh ho! showing your teeth, are you?” exclaimed the boy, as he drew
back his hand. “Well, I must be careful! But I won’t hurt you, poor
fellow. I’m sorry you are caught in my trap, but I am glad I didn’t use
one with sharp teeth.

“And I want a beaver for a pet, or else I’d let you go. But I’ll be
good to you. I’ll take you home with me and you can have a nice little
cage to live in, and I’ll give you apples and bark to eat every day. I
guess you like apples, ’cause you ate the one I used to bait my trap,”
went on the boy.

Toto looked at this boy. For a moment the beaver thought he might be
the same one who had chased the tramps, but of this Toto could not be
sure. He did not know much about boys or men.

“Yes, I’ll take you home to our houseboat and treat you kindly,” went
on the boy. “Dad said I couldn’t catch anything in my trap, but I did.
And now I wonder how I can get you home without having you bite me? I
guess I can put you in a bag.”

The boy had a cloth bag in his pocket, and, opening this, he poked
Toto into it, using a stick. The beaver tried not to go in, for he was
afraid the bag was a worse trap than the one in which he was already
caught. But the chain held the beaver fast and he had to do just as the
boy wanted.

And so, a little later, Toto found himself shut up in a bag, trap,
chain and all, and being carried away over the boy’s shoulder. The trap
was still fast to the beaver’s leg, and he wished it would be loosened,
for it hurt.

Then, if Toto had been a boy or a girl, he would have cried. But
beavers don’t do that.

Toto did not know where the boy was taking him, but it seemed a long
way through the woods, and, after a while, the beaver felt himself
being set down, inside the bag as he was.

“Where have you been?” asked some one of the boy.

“Oh, I’ve been off in the woods, Dad!” answered the boy. “And, what do
you think? I caught a beaver in my trap! A beaver!”

Of course Toto did not understand these words, but he could hear the
boy and his father talking. Then the bag was opened, and Toto tried
to jump out. But some one caught him round the middle of his body, in
strong hands, and Toto could not turn his head to bite. Toto saw that
a man was holding him, and the boy was standing near. And all around
was water. Toto could see it and smell it.

At first he thought he was back at the dear old beaver pond, and he
looked for the dam, for Cuppy, for his father and the others. But
a second look showed him that this was not the beaver pond. It was
another body of water――much larger. But still Toto wished, with all his
heart, that he was in that water.

“I’d soon get away from them by swimming, if they’d let me go and would
take this trap off my leg,” thought Toto.

But the man was not going to let him go. He held tightly to Toto, and
the beaver could not bite.

“Take the trap off his leg, Donald,” said the boy’s father. “It must
hurt him. I hope the leg isn’t broken. If you want a beaver for a pet
you should have used a box trap, that would not have hurt him.”

“I didn’t know I was going to catch a beaver,” replied the boy. “But
I’m glad I did. I’ll make a little cage for him, and feed him bark and
apples. You hold him, Dad, while I take off the trap.”

So while the man held Toto, with his hands on the middle of the fat
beaver’s body, the boy opened the trap and slipped it from the animal’s
leg. And you can well guess that Toto was very glad of this. The pain
stopped when the trap was taken off, and, aside from a little sore
place on his leg, the beaver was not hurt.

[Illustration: And then, through the bushes, came a boy.]

“We’ll put him in a box, and then we must start the boat,” said the man.

Toto did not know what a boat was, but a little later he found himself
in a box, with a wire screen over the side which was open. Toto could
look out, he could smell the air and the water, and he could see the
water itself, but he could not get out. And then, by the way the wind
blew and by the manner in which the sun sparkled on the little waves,
Toto knew that he was moving along.

“But it’s queer I’m not swimming,” thought the beaver. “I am moving
along on the water, and yet I am not wet. How is that, I wonder?”

The truth was that Toto had been brought on board a houseboat――that is,
a boat made somewhat like a house. Donald, his father and his mother
were traveling down the river on a houseboat, and when they “tied
up” for a day Donald had gone on shore and set his trap. And he had
caught Toto. Now Toto was on the boat and more adventures were going to
happen.




CHAPTER XI

TOTO GETS HOME AGAIN


Shut tightly in the cage on the deck of the houseboat, Toto looked
across the water. The boat was moving slowly along. It was near the
bank of the river, and some of the trees were so close that the boat
brushed the branches as it moved along.

Suddenly Toto heard a voice speaking to him in the beloved animal
language he knew so well.

“Hello there, beaver boy!” called the voice. “What are you doing on
that boat?”

“Oh, I don’t know what you mean by ‘boat,’” answered Toto, “but I don’t
want to be on it, whatever it is. But who are you? Can’t you help me?”

“No, I am sorry to say I can not,” was the answer. “Don’t you remember
me? I am Slicko, the jumping squirrel, and I live in one of the trees
near your beaver pond.”

“Oh, Slicko, see what’s happened to me!” cried Toto, looking from his
cage and seeing the squirrel frisking about in the trees on shore near
the boat. “I was caught in a trap, and now I’m in a cage.”

“Yes, I see you are,” answered Slicko. “I wish I could help you, but I
can’t. I was caught in a trap once, myself, and I lived in a funny cage
with a wheel. But I got away, after I had had many adventures, and now
I am back in the woods again. A man wrote a book about me, too.”

“Well, I wouldn’t care how many books they wrote about me if I could
only get out of this cage,” sighed Toto. “I don’t know what a book is,
and I don’t much care. I heard Don and Blackie talk about them, though.”

“Oh, do you know Don and Blackie?” asked Slicko, as she kept running
along in the trees, chattering away to Toto and keeping up with the
slowly moving houseboat.

“Yes, I know them a little,” answered the beaver.

“And do you know Squinty, the comical pig, and Mappo, the merry
monkey?” asked Slicko.

“I haven’t met them yet, but maybe I shall,” answered Toto. “But I’d
rather be back at the beaver dam and hear my mother tell me to come in
and get some poplar bark.”

“I am sorry for you,” chattered Slicko, who had once lived near the
dam. “I’m going back to the beaver pond now, and I’ll tell your father
and mother what’s happened to you.”

“Oh, thank you!” said Toto. “Maybe they can come and take me away.”

“I hope so,” said Slicko.

Then the river grew wider, the boat moved out farther from shore, and
Toto and the squirrel could no longer talk to one another. But Slicko
waved her bushy tail at the beaver boy in the cage on the deck of the
houseboat.

For several days Toto was kept a prisoner in the cage on the houseboat.
It was not a fast boat, and did not go very far any day. Only a mile or
two would it move down the river, and then it would be tied up to the
shore, while the man and his wife and Donald went walking in the woods.
The man painted pictures, and he would stop at every pretty scene he
came to. So, though a week had passed since Toto was caught in the
trap, he really was not carried very far away from his own home at the
beaver dam in Winding River.

The boy who had caught the beaver in a trap was kind to Toto. He
brought bits of bark, potatoes, apples and sweet water-plant roots to
the little prisoner each day. At first Toto would not eat, but finally
he grew so hungry that he had to. His leg was not sore any longer, and
he could have waddled on the ground, or he could have paddled through
the water if he could only have gotten loose. But he was kept shut up
in a tin-lined wooden box with wire in front. This was his cage.

Slicko had kept her word. She had gone back through the woods, and,
reaching the beaver pond, she had told Cuppy and the others how she had
seen Toto in a cage on the houseboat.

Mrs. Beaver and her husband and Sniffy wanted to go right away and
rescue Toto, and they started with Cuppy and some of the others. For
beavers are animals that help one another when they can. They are all
like one big family. But the houseboat had gone down the river, and
even Cuppy, wise old beaver that he was, could not find it.

“I guess Toto is gone forever,” sighed Mother Beaver. “Well, it is sad,
but it can not be helped. I hope he has a happy home.”

And so, after a few days, Toto was almost forgotten by all who lived in
the beaver pond. His mother and father did not forget him, though, even
when they were busy gnawing down trees or working on the dam.

One day, about two weeks after he had been caught in the trap and put
in the cage, Toto, still on the houseboat, saw, from the deck, that
they were coming to a very wide part of the river. It was a stretch
of water much larger than the beaver pond. And there were not so many
trees near the river now.

“Are we going to stop at the big city, Dad?” asked Donald, the boy, of
his father, as they stood on deck, looking around.

“Yes, I think we shall tie up there for a day or so,” was the answer.
“I have painted some pictures of the woods, and I may sell them in the
big city.”

“I like the city and I like the woods,” said the boy. “They are
going to have a circus here at this city. I saw the pictures on the
billboards. I want to see the elephants and the lions and the tigers.”

“The wild animals in the woods are better than those in a circus, my
boy,” said the man. “But still if there were no circuses many people
would never see a wild animal. We shall all go to the circus.”

And so, a little later, the boat was tied up near the shore of the
river, and Toto, looking out from his cage, could see a number of big,
white objects. At first he thought they were white clouds that had come
down to earth, as happens in a fog. But when he looked again he knew
they were not clouds.

“There are the circus tents!” cried the boy.

And a little later Toto saw the boy and his father and mother leave the
boat, going on shore.

But while he was lying stretched out in his cage on the deck of the
houseboat, being all alone, now that the man and lady and boy had gone
to the circus, Toto heard voices talking, and he heard the tramp of
heavy feet.

“Here is a good place to water the elephants,” said a man. “Come on,
Tum Tum, take a drink and go in and take a bath if you want to. There
is plenty of water. But don’t splash any on this houseboat. The people
who own it might not like it.”

Toto looked from his cage. He saw, entering the water, a number of big
animals, many hundred times as large as the largest beaver. And the
animals seemed to have two tails, one in front and one behind. But
the one in front was larger and could be curled and twisted in a very
strange way.

“Take a drink, Tum Tum!” called one of the men with the big animals.

Then Toto saw one of the big beasts stick his front tail down into the
river, suck up a lot of water and squirt it over his back.

“Is your name Tum Tum?” asked Toto of the big beast who was nearest the
houseboat.

“That’s what it is,” was the answer. “But who are you and why are you
there?”

“I am a beaver, and my name is Toto,” was the answer. “I was caught in
a trap and now I am in a cage, and I wish I could get out. But what
kind of animal are you? I never saw one like you before. And why have
you two tails? I have only one.”

“I have not two tails,” answered Tum Tum, the jolly elephant. “The one
in front is my trunk, or nose. But I am sorry for you if you don’t like
it in your cage. I live in a circus, and some of our animals like to be
in cages, while others do not.

“We had a tiger named Tamba in the circus, but he isn’t with us any
more. He got away, and I heard he went back to the jungle where he
first lived. But Nero, our circus lion, is still in his cage, or he was
when I came from the circus grounds a little while ago. Nero seems to
like it in his cage.”

“Well, I don’t like it here,” said Toto. “I don’t believe I’d like it
in a circus, either, though I never tried that. I wish I could get
away.”

“Do you really want to get loose?” asked Tum Tum, the jolly elephant,
coming close to the houseboat, on the open deck of which stood Toto’s
cage.

“Of course I want to get loose. I want to go back to the beaver dam!”

“Then keep very still and I will set you free,” said Tum Tum, in what
would be an animal whisper. “I can reach over, with my trunk, and tear
the wire loose from the front of your cage. Then you can get out.”

“Oh, thank you! Please do that!” begged Toto.

So, when none of the other elephants were looking, and when the circus
men were busy farther down the river, Tum Tum reached his trunk over
the low rail about the deck of the houseboat.

On the end of Tum Tum’s trunk was a sort of finger and thumb. You have
seen elephants use them in picking up peanuts. Tum Tum with his trunk
now quickly tore the wire off the front of Toto’s cage. In another
minute the beaver was loose and out on deck.

“Oh, thank you!” he called to Tum Tum. “Now I am free!”

“Yes, you may go anywhere you like,” said Tum Tum. “Don’t you want to
come to the circus and see me and Nero do tricks? We are said to be
quite smart, and a man who wrote about Blackie, Don, Mappo and some
other animals, has written a book about me and about Nero. Better come
and see us.”

“No, thank you,” answered Toto. “I want to swim back to my beaver
friends as soon as I can. Thank you for setting me free.”

“Don’t mention it! Glad I could help you!” said Tum Tum, speaking in a
rumbly voice, for his trunk was under water just then.

It did not take Toto long to jump off the boat into the river. And, oh!
how good it felt to him to be in water again where he had room enough
to swim. He knew he had come down stream, so he began to swim up, as
his home was in that direction.

I am sorry I have not room to tell you the many adventures Toto had as
he swam up the river, and along the other streams that branched from
it. How he knew his way back to the beaver dam I don’t know, but Toto
did. Cats and dogs find their way back home when they have been taken
many miles away, in trains or automobiles, so it is not strange that
Toto could find his way back.

It took him more than a week, though, and he had to be careful not to
be caught again, for many times he was chased by dogs and boys. But he
was pretty safe as long as he kept in the water. And at last, one day,
Toto found himself back again in the very woods where he knew he lived.

He swam as near to the pond as he could, and then he crawled out and
waddled along through the woods, taking care not to get into any more
danger.

Suddenly, as Toto traveled along, stopping now and then to nibble a bit
of bark, he heard some voices talking――the voices of men. By this time
Toto was quite well acquainted with men’s voices. The voices of Donald
and his father were kind, but the voices the beaver boy now heard were
harsh and angry.

“Well, you hid the jewelry away, and you ought to know where you put
it!” said one voice.

“Yes, I put it in a hollow tree, but now I can’t find the tree,”
growled another voice. “You all saw me hide it!”

“Yes, but maybe you came and took it away when we didn’t know it,” said
another. “Where is that jewelry?”

“In the hollow tree, I tell you! But I don’t know which one. We hid it
in such a hurry that I have forgotten!”

Then the voices grew more harsh and angry, and Toto, looking through a
bush, saw the same ragged men, one of them red-haired, that he had seen
before when they robbed the home of the little girl’s grandmother.

“I guess I’d better not let them see me,” thought Toto. “I don’t want
to be caught again!” So he slipped around the tramps sitting in the
woods, and a little later Toto came within sight of the beaver pond. He
saw his brother Sniffy on top of the dam, mending a hole with some clay
and grass roots.

“Sniffy! Sniffy! Here I am!” called Toto. “I’m home again!”




CHAPTER XII

TOTO IN A STORM


Sniffy, the other little beaver boy, who was plastering up a hole in
the dam with some mud, was so surprised at hearing Toto call that for a
moment he did not answer. Then, when he had looked up and had seen his
brother walking toward him, Sniffy cried:

“Is it really you, Toto? Have you come back to us? Where have you been
and what happened to you?”

“Well, I really have come back, as you can see,” answered Toto. “And
as for where I have been and what happened to me, it will take a long
time to tell. I have had many adventures, but perhaps the most strange
of all was when Tum Tum broke open the cage where I was held on the
houseboat and set me free.”

“Who is Tum Tum?” asked Sniffy. “Is he a beaver?”

“Tum Tum is a jolly elephant, and he lives in a circus,” said Toto.
“He’s in a book, too, and he said maybe a man might put me in a book.”

Sniffy sat down on his tail.

“I do declare, Toto!” exclaimed the little stay-at-home beaver, “since
you went away you use so many strange words that I don’t know what you
are talking about. Adventures, book, circus, Tum Tum, and the like of
that! Goodness, but you must know a lot!”

“Oh, not so very much,” answered Toto. “I didn’t know enough to keep
out of a trap.”

“Is that how you were caught?” asked Sniffy. “In a trap?”

“That’s just how,” answered Toto. “I ate a piece of apple, as Slicko
must have told you, and was caught. But come on, I want to see my
father and mother, and Cuppy and Dumple and all the rest.”

“Yes, and I guess they’ll be glad to see you!” said Sniffy.

And you may be sure the other beavers were glad to see Toto again.
He had to tell them all about his adventures, and how he met Slicko,
the squirrel, and Tum Tum, the elephant, and also what he heard about
Tamba, the tame tiger, and Nero, the circus lion.

“Did anything happen after I was away?” asked Toto.

“Not very much,” answered his father. “We had one storm and the dam was
broken a little. We are mending it now.”

“Yes, and I think we are going to have another storm,” said Cuppy. “We
must hurry and cut down more trees to make the dam stronger. We must be
busy, bustling beavers for a time now.”

So, almost as soon as he had returned home, Toto had to go to work. But
he liked it. In fact beavers like work more than any other animal in
the world, I think.

“Did you see anything of the tramps while I was gone?” asked Toto of
his brother one day, when they were off in the woods, gathering bark
for supper.

“No, I haven’t seen them,” Sniffy replied. “Have you?”

“Yes, on my way back home,” Toto answered. “They were talking loud in
the woods, but they didn’t see me. I guess they don’t live around here.”

It was a day or so after this when Toto was off among the poplar trees,
getting some bark for himself and some for his mother, that he heard
talking among the bushes.

“Maybe the tramps are here again!” thought Toto, crouching down among
the leaves. Then, as he peered out, with only his head showing, the
little beaver boy saw a lady and a little girl walking in the woods.

“Do you think we’ll ever find that box of jewelry, Grandmother?” asked
the little girl.

“I’m afraid we never shall,” was the answer.

“Well, you know Bobbie said, when he chased after the tramps, that
they ran to the woods. Maybe they dropped the box of jewelry, with my
bracelet, somewhere among the trees. Or maybe they hid it.”

“I hardly think so, Millie,” answered her grandmother. “Since you first
told me that I have been looking among the trees, but I have not found
even so much as a tiny ring――one I used to wear when I was a little
girl. I guess my box is gone forever.”

Then the little girl and her grandmother walked on.

When Toto went back to the dam that afternoon he found all the beavers
very busy. His father, his mother, Sniffy, Dumple and all the rest were
cutting down trees, and Cuppy was hurrying here, there, and everywhere,
keeping watch of the work.

“What’s the matter?” asked Toto. “Are the bad tramps coming?”

“No, but a storm is coming,” answered Cuppy, “and it may rain hard and
make our pond so deep that the water will wash away our dam. So we are
making the dam stronger. You must help too, Toto.”

Toto was very glad to do his share of the work, and soon he and Sniffy
were together gnawing down a big tree. All the afternoon the beavers
worked at making their dam stronger. As the sun began to go down the
wind blew harder and the sky was black with clouds. Cuppy banged his
tail on the ground, and all the other beavers stopped work to see what
the matter was.

“Stop gnawing trees, everybody!” called Cuppy. “Don’t gnaw any more.
Finish those you have started, and then we will stop work.”

“Why?” asked Toto. “We can see to gnaw in the dark almost as well as in
daylight.”

“Yes, I know,” answered Cuppy. “But there is a big wind storm coming.
If a tree is half gnawed through it may blow over before you know it
and hurt you. Whole trees, which we have not bitten into, will not so
easily blow over. So finish what you are doing, my friends, and then do
not gnaw any more until after the storm.”

Every one did as Cuppy said, for he was the oldest and wisest beaver of
them all, and when darkness came the last of the half-gnawed trees was
cut through, and Toto and all the rest went to their houses.

In the night the storm came. My, how the wind did blow! But there was
not much rain, and the beavers were glad of that, for their dam was
safe.

In the morning the wind was still blowing very hard, and Cuppy, who
looked out, said:

[Illustration: A tree had fallen on Toto’s back, pinning him to the
ground.]

“No tree cutting to-day!”

So the beavers had a sort of holiday, and, after he had eaten his
breakfast, Toto went for a walk in the woods. He did not mind the rain
nor the wind, and he was going to be very careful about traps.

The little beaver boy was walking along, thinking of his many
adventures and wishing he could see Tum Tum the jolly elephant again,
when, all at once, there came a strong puff of wind, there was a
crashing sound, and Toto suddenly felt himself held fast.

“Dear me, I’m in a trap again!” said the poor little beaver, as he
noticed something pressing heavily on his back. “But I didn’t see any
apple, or anything like that.”

Then he looked around him, turning as well as he was able, and he found
out he was not in a trap set by a man. But he was in almost as bad a
plight.

For a tree in the woods had been blown over in the storm and had fallen
on Toto’s back, pinning him down to the ground.

Twist and turn as he did, he could not get loose. His tail was caught,
too, so he could not pound with it and call the other beavers to his
aid. Poor Toto did not know what to do.

“This is worse than being in a man-trap,” he said. “No boy will come to
take me out for a pet now. Oh, if only Tum Tum were here he could lift
this heavy tree off my back!”

But no Tum Tum came. Toto was held down by the tree, but he was in no
pain. He couldn’t get loose; that was all. And there he had to stay,
alone in the woods, with the wind blowing all about him.

But, after a while, the storm passed. The rain stopped, the sun came
out, and the wind died away. Still poor Toto was held fast, and he
could not wiggle loose.

As he was held there, thinking of many things, and sadly wondering if
he would ever see his home again, he heard a crackling of wood, as if
some one were walking among the trees.

“Oh, maybe it is Tum Tum come to save me again!” thought Toto, not
knowing that circuses never come to the forest, but show only in towns
and cities. “Maybe it is Tum Tum!”

But no jolly elephant came. Instead Toto heard voices talking, but the
voices were gentle, and not the rough ones of the tramps.

“Oh, look, Grandma!” cried the little Millie. “There is a tree blown
down.”

“Yes, it was a terrible storm,” said the old lady.

“And, oh, Grandma! Look!” cried Millie. “There is a little brown puppy
dog caught under this tree!”

“That is not a puppy dog――it is a beaver,” said the old lady. “I heard
there was a colony of them in these woods, but this is the first one I
have seen. Beavers are very shy animals.”

“Oh, but Grandma! do you think we could save this little one that is
caught under the tree?” asked Millie, who had come to walk in the woods
with her grandmother after the storm. “Maybe he isn’t hurt much and I
could take him home for a pet. He’s like the little beaver that helped
find my skate. Maybe it’s the same one.”

“Well, we can try to see if we can lift the tree off his back,” said
the old lady. “If we both take hold I think we can raise it.”

Millie and her grandmother took hold of the fallen tree. Once, twice,
three times they pulled at it, and finally they lifted it off Toto’s
back. As soon as the little beaver boy found himself free he ran away
as fast as he could.

“Oh, there he goes!” cried Millie, much disappointed.

“Yes, I didn’t think you could get him,” said her grandmother. “Beavers
are too shy to make good pets. You would have to keep this one in a
cage all the while, I’m afraid. It is better that he should live free
in the woods.”

If Toto had been a dog or a cat he might have stayed to thank, in his
own way, Millie and her grandmother for having saved him. But being a
shy beaver all he wanted to do was to get away.

But though beavers are shy they, like most animals, are curious. They
like to see what is going on. So when Toto had run off a little way
among the trees he stopped, crouched down among the leaves, and looked
back.

He saw something very curious, though he did not quite know what it
meant. Millie and her grandmother went close to the broken stump of the
tree that had blown over on Toto.

“This tree was hollow and rotten――that is why it toppled over so
easily,” said the old lady. “Look, Millie, there is quite a hole down
inside this stump.”

“Did the little beaver have his nest there?” asked Millie.

“No, beavers always live near water,” answered the old lady. “But
perhaps a squirrel had a nest here, though I hardly think so, for they
like to live higher up in trees, out of danger.”

The little girl put her hand and arm down in the hollow stump. As she
did so she uttered a cry of surprise.

“Did you find a squirrel, after all?” asked her grandmother.

“No, but look what I found!” cried the little girl. “It’s a box,
Grandmother. A box and――”

“Why――why, it’s my box of jewelry!” exclaimed the old lady. “Oh, it’s
my box of jewelry that the tramps took! They must have hidden it in
the hollow tree, and then either forgotten about it, or they couldn’t
find it again. But here it is. The storm blew the tree over, and we
came along and found it.”

“Isn’t it wonderful?” cried Millie. “Is my bracelet in there, Grandma?”

The old lady opened the box, took out a pretty gold bracelet and gave
it to Millie. The little girl looked happy.

“All my jewelry is here,” said the grandmother. “The tramps must have
been in such a hurry that they didn’t have time to take out a single
piece. Oh, how happy I am!”

“So am I!” said Millie, and her bracelet sparkled in the sun.

Toto looked at the girl and her grandmother. He did not know the share
he had had in helping them find the jewel box. For if the tree had not
fallen on him Millie and Mrs. Norman might not have stopped to lift it
off, and if they had not done that they would not have found the box.

“Well, I guess I had better go home,” said the little beaver boy to
himself. “Another tree might fall on me.”

So back to the dam he went, and there he told Sniffy and the others
what had happened to him, though of course Toto knew nothing about
bracelets, jewelry and things like that.

“It seems to me you have lots of adventures,” said Sniffy to Toto that
night. “You have had almost as many as Tamba, the tiger, or Tum Tum,
the elephant. Maybe you’ll be in a book, Toto.”

“Oh, I hardly think so,” answered the beaver boy.

But you can see, for yourself, that he is.

And that night, as Millie petted Don, the dog, who came over with her
cousin who lived near by, and with Bobbie, the boy who had chased the
tramps, the little girl was very happy because she had her bracelet.
And the grandmother was happy, too. And Blackie, the cat, was happy
also, when her little girl mistress petted her.

And back in the beaver house, in the waters of the pond behind the dam,
Toto was likewise happy, as he gnawed some sweet poplar bark.

Toto had many more adventures after that, but none of them quite as
exciting as the ones I have written about here. And now let us say
good-bye to the little beaver boy.


THE END




 Transcriber’s Notes:

 ――Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_).

 ――Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected.

 ――Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved.






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