“Why, what a question?” laughed Bumper, trying to evade a direct answer.
“I think it’s a very natural question,” added Spotted Tail. “I don’t believe you ever saw Mr. Beaver or his house.”
Bumper laughed heartily at this, but it was a laugh to conceal his embarrassment and not an expression of his enjoyment.
“Ho! Ho! You can be very comical if you want to!” he said. “Now maybe you can describe what sort of a house Mr. Beaver builds. Let me see if you can.”
But Spotted Tail felt he had Bumper in a corner, and he wasn’t to be bluffed. “I could describe it,” he said, leering, “but I don’t have to. If you have any eyes in your head you can see for yourself what it is like.”
“How’s that?” asked Bumper, growing more uncomfortable.
“Just what I said,” was the quick rejoinder. “We’ve been standing near it for some time, and you can see it with your own eyes—if you know where to look for it.”
“Oh! Ho!” laughed Bumper, less joyously than before. “Mr. Beaver’s house is in plain sight, is it? Well, then, neither one of us will have to describe it.”
“No, but where is it?” pursued Spotted Tail relentlessly.
Now Bumper was in a terrible quandary. There was nothing in view that looked like a house. So he cast a glance up at the trees, hoping to find it among the branches, and then back through the thick, tangled bushes. There was nothing in sight that suggested the home of any animal.