Now the door of a beaver’s hut is under the water; and the water was frozen over with thick ice; and the grandfather beaver knew that the wolf could not dig through the ice, so he laughed, and the other beavers laughed too.
When the wolf heard the beavers laugh, he was very angry, and he snapped out and said:
“I am coming in through the roof!”
So he began to scratch and dig with his paws at the roof of the beavers’ hut. But the roof of the beavers’ hut was made of boughs well laid in and plastered with mud and gravel, and it was all frozen as hard as the ice on the pond. So when the wolf scratched, he only hurt his claws and made his pads very sore; so after a while he had to leave off and go home, limping on his sore pads. And when the beavers heard him leave off and go away, they laughed again, down in their snug house.
So the wolf went home to his den, and he got no supper that night.
The Wolf at the Beaver’s Hut
The next night he went out again and hunted by himself. And he was so hungry that he sat on his tail and howled at the moon.