Judy burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. When Horace was out on the bank draped in the car blanket he looked even funnier. But someone else was laughing, too! Judy whirled around just as a small figure let himself down from one of the trees.
“You!” she exclaimed, grabbing the “wood sprite” by the arm before he could elude her again. “It was you who called to my brother and made him fall. Who are you, anyway?”
“My name is Danny,” he replied in the same voice that had startled them from the tree.
Judy and Horace looked at each other as much as to say, “We might have known it.” What they really said was, “What are you doing here?”
“Watching the beavers,” he replied. “I always watch the beavers. I had to stop you from taking that lady stick. You’d bust up the whole dam.”
“That lady stick,” Horace said sternly, “is a leg off our table. I’d like to know where the beavers got it.”
“They dragged it here. They drag lots of stuff here and build their dam real solid. I’m not going to let anyone bust it up,” declared Danny.
“What are you, a watchman for the beavers?” asked Judy. “The people at the orphanage were worried about you. Have you been watching the beavers all night?”
“Sort of,” he replied, hanging his head.
His face was so dirty Judy could hardly tell what sort of complexion he had, but his eyes were blue. His hair, like her own, was full of the prickly stuff the evergreens shed. She looked from him to Horace wrapped in his blanket and trying to sound fierce as he scolded the boy. He kept his eyes to the ground most of the time, not answering Horace’s questions.