Ka-splash, ka-splash, ka-splash, ka-splash, went the cautious feet of the fox. He was wading up the other side of the pond, nearer and nearer to the flat stone. Ka-splash—he was right beside it. Ka-splash. “Yah!” he screamed. “A trap! Urr—waur-r-r! Leggo, leggo!” he snarled, biting the thing that gripped his leg.
Then slowly, surely, they saw him dragged deeper and deeper into the pool.
“Oh!” gasped Nibble. “How awful! That was—Grandpop Snapping Turtle!”
“Lip, lip, lip,” sang the ripples against the shore. They broke in rings about the poor fox’s nose as it disappeared. They travelled clear across to the farthest shore where Nibble Rabbit and Doctor Muskrat were crouching in the willows, and they whispered “Silvertip’s gone.”
“Poor Silvertip,” gasped Nibble. “I wouldn’t have minded a bit if the dogs had caught him—but to be drowned—Ugh!” And he shivered.
“That’s all in the way you look at it,” answered the doctor. “You’re used to the idea of having something run you down and kill you. But we muskrats are quite used to the idea of being eaten by snapping turtles. If I’m not clever enough to get away it doesn’t matter to me which gets me in the end.”
“But he’s terribly dangerous,” Nibble insisted. “I should think you’d be afraid to dive into the same pond with him. We must catch him. We can get Tommy to help us.”
“There’s no need of that,” argued the wise old beast calmly. “I’ve grown up in this pond. And Grandpop Snapping Turtle has been paddling around in it every summer since I was born. He’s never troubled me because so far I’m smarter than he is. When I get old and stupid perhaps he will.”
“But why should there be anything to catch us?” persisted Nibble. “Why can’t we make a compact with them, like the cows made with the dogs, or why can’t we make a compact with Man to help us kill them? Then it would be like Mother Nature meant to have it in the First-Off Beginning.”
“You forget that they both were Mother Nature’s own children to start with. Even she can’t make a compact with the Things-that-came-from-under-the-earth like Grandpop. And those are the worst enemies we have. Besides, I think even Mother Nature has changed her mind about that first plan. Now she’s growing something she never thought of.”