He groveled on his forelegs, while his tail and hind legs continued to wiggle, and with a sniff he grabbed a bit of stick between his teeth.
"Come on--let me in," he urged.

"I know how to play!" He tossed the stick in the air as if to prove what he was saying, and gave a little yap.
Umisk and his brothers were like dummies.
And then, of a sudden, someone saw Baree.

It was a big beaver swimming down the pond with a sapling timber for the new dam that was under way.
Instantly he loosed his hold and faced the shore.

And then, like the report of a rifle, there came the crack of his big flat tail on the water--the beaver's signal of danger that on a quiet night can be heard half a mile away.
"DANGER," it warned.

"DANGER--DANGER--DANGER!" Scarcely had the signal gone forth when tails were cracking in all directions--in the pond, in the hidden canals, in the thick willows and alders.