Unable to ask questions, the Babe was obliged to think for himself.
He had only a vague idea what otters were like, but he knew a good deal about sliding down hill.

He pictured to himself a high, rough bank leading down to the water; but as not even Bill's daring imagination would have represented the gamesome beasts as employing toboggans or hand-sleds, he thought it must be rather bumpy and uncomfortable work coasting over the roots and rocks on one's own unprotected anatomy.
The sounds continued, growing louder and louder, till the two adventurers must have been within thirty or forty feet of the stream; and they were creeping as noiselessly as a shadow slips over the grass, in the hope of catching the merrymakers at their game.

But suddenly there came one great splash, heavy and prolonged, as if all the sliders had come down close together.

And then silence.

Uncle Andy crouched motionless for several minutes, as if he had been turned into a stump.
Then he straightened himself up with a disappointed air.
"Gone!" he muttered.