[Taking a drink of the cool water, Slicko washed her paws and face in it.]
Then, as the brown creature moved closer, Slicko saw that it had a long tail, and four legs, and the legs had something like hands on the ends.
“Why, it looks just like a brown, hairy boy!” thought Slicko. “And I’m afraid of boys. Mamma said they were dangerous. I wonder what I had better do?”
Slicko hid deeper down in the leaves, and, a little later, as the brown animal came closer, the girl squirrel saw that it was not the kind of a boy she had ever seen before. For, though boys can climb trees, they can not climb up and down as fast as the brown animal was doing, nor can they hang by their tails. In fact, as Slicko knew, boys have no tails.
And then Slicko heard the brown animal say:
“Ha! Here are some of those chestnuts! I must get some, for, though they are not as good as cocoanuts, they will keep me from being hungry. Yes, I’ll get some!”
“Ha!” thought Slicko. “That creature is not a boy, that’s sure! And it eats nuts just as we squirrels do. I don’t believe it will do me any harm. I’m going out to see.”
Slicko crawled out from under the leaves, and, as soon as she moved, the brown creature called out:
“What is that? Who is there? Who is it?”