So they set out on a longer expedition.

In the course of the morning they killed a big muskrat, after a sharp fight, and felt terribly proud of themselves.

They got bitten, of course, and had their fur all mussed up, so it meant a long, elaborate toilet in the warm grass by the water's edge.

And it was not till early in the afternoon that they came once more to the fateful slide where their parents had so mysteriously vanished.
"At the sight of it, as they came upon it suddenly around a bend of the stream, their fur bristled and they crouched flat, glancing angrily this way and that.

Then they stole forward, and once more explored the whole place minutely.