While the animals were talking they heard two great noises, "Bang! bang!" and they knew that the beaver was telling them that some animal was coming.
The Cub Bear rushed to the mouth of the cave to see who it was, and he said:
"I see two rats coming up the path. They are perfectly white. With the two rats is a rat that is bigger than both of them. It has beautiful fur."
Just then the Cub Bear looked up at the owl, to see why the owl did not say "Who-o-o? who-o-o-o?" and just as he looked, he saw the old owl start from his perch, with a great fluttering of wings, and pounce like a flash down on the rats, and he caught one of the white rats in his claws and flew back to his perch, and there he began to eat this poor little white rat. But the other white rat and the muskrat came into the cave.
The little Cub Bear said very politely, "Come in, Mr. Rat."
But the little white rat was trembling so that he couldn't say a thing.
And the Cub Bear said, "I am very glad I am not a little rat, to be eaten up by a wicked old owl."
But the Circus Bear said, "You know that owls eat rats, and mice, and little birds, and things of that kind; but this owl is a very good, kind owl, and I am surprised that he would harm one of the white rats from the circus; but I guess he is very hungry, because he has been sitting up there a long while with nothing to eat."
Then the Cub Bear said, "We are going to try to build a house big enough for all the animals, so if they come to see us, we will have a place for them to stay. We think there is a large cave, large enough for us all, back of this cave, but we don't know. Can you help us?"