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Gently Baree nosed him, and after a moment or two Umisk got up on his webbed feet, while fully twenty or thirty beavers were making a tremendous fuss in the water near the shore. After this the beaver pond seemed more than ever like home to Baree.
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.
At first they only moaned and shivered and begged to be again taken up by their masters. These, however, had no intention of doing anything of the kind. "Umisk! Umisk!" they excitedly cried, and soon this Indian word for "beaver" began to have its effect upon the dogs. Pricking up their ears, they began running about, until at length, with a couple of yelps of triumph, they were off.
It may be that the beavers discussed the matter fully among themselves. It is possible that Umisk and his playmates told their parents of their adventure, and of how Baree had made no move to harm them when he could quite easily have caught them.
He could see some reason for nibbling at sticks he liked to sharpen his teeth on sticks himself; but it puzzled him to explain why Umisk so painstakingly stripped the bark from the sticks and swallowed it. Another method of play still further discouraged Baree's advances.
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. To Umisk and his companions they said: "RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!" Baree stood rigid and motionless now. In amazement he watched the four little beavers plunge into the pond and disappear. He heard the sounds of other and heavier bodies striking the water.
He was not a fighter when it came fang-to-fang, unless cornered and so fierce and sudden was Baree's assault that Napakasew took to flight almost as quickly as he had begun his attack on Umisk. Baree did not follow him, but went to Umisk, who lay half in the mud, whimpering and snuffling in a curious sort of way.
It was that most glorious hour of a summer's day sunset when he reached it. He stopped a hundred yards away, with the pond still hidden from his sight, and sniffed the air, and listened. The POND was there. He caught the cool, honey smell of it. But Umisk, and Beaver Tooth, and all the others? Would he find them?
As many more waddled out among the alders and willows. Eagerly Baree watched for Umisk and his chums. At last he saw them, swimming forth from one of the smaller houses. They climbed out on their playground the smooth bar above the shore of mud. Baree wagged his tail so hard that his whole body shook, and hurried along the dam.
With a long breath he lay down among the alders, with his head just enough exposed to give him a clear view. As the sun settled lower the pond became alive. Out on the shore where he had saved Umisk from the fox came another generation of young beavers three of them, fat and waddling. Very softly Baree whined. All that night he lay in the alders. The beaver pond became his home again.
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