"Hurrah!" Brownie cried. "Here's just what I need!" And then he hurried back home again—but not to tell about the trees that had been stolen. He hastened home to chain down his house and save it from the great wind. For Brownie Beaver had found a chain, which the loggers had used to haul the logs out of the woods, and had forgotten.
It was almost dark when Brownie reached his house in the village in the pond. He was never a very good walker. And dragging that heavy chain behind him through the forest only made him slower than ever. Sometimes the chain caught on a bush and tripped him. But Brownie was so pleased with his find that he only laughed whenever he fell, for he was not hurt.
The whole village gathered round his house to watch him while he tied the chain on it and anchored the ends of the chain to the bottom of the pond with a big stone.
"Why do you do that?" people asked.
"He's afraid of the cyclone to-morrow," Tired Tim piped up, without waiting for Brownie to answer. "You know, old Grandaddy Beaver says that there's going to be a great wind. This young feller——" said Tim—"he's already dug a house in the bank near mine—ha! ha! He thinks Grandaddy knows. But I say that Grandaddy Beaver is a—a fine, noble, old gentleman," Tired Tim stammered. He had happened to glance around while he was talking; and to his surprise there was Grandaddy floating in the water close behind him.
"He certainly is," everybody agreed. "But we hope he's mistaken about the great wind."
When Tuesday came—which was the very next day—Brownie Beaver crept into his tunnel in the bank at sunrise. And he never came outside again until the sun had set.
When he saw that his house was still there, in the middle of the pond, he shouted with joy.
"Hurrah!" he cried. "The chain saved my house!" Then he noticed that all the other houses were still there, too. "How's this?" he asked Tired Tim, who stood on the bank beside him. "Did my chain save the whole village?"
Tired Tim grinned—for he was not too lazy to do that.