“But I’m going to do something!” thought the beaver boy. “I’m not going to let her catch me! Maybe that’s a trap she tried to get me in—maybe that shiny thing is a trap!”
Toto knew what traps were, for his father and mother had told him about them, and how to keep away from their sharp teeth that caught beavers and muskrats by the legs.
Millie came closer and closer. With bright, eager eyes, almost as bright and eager as those of Toto himself, she looked at the bush.
Toto was all ready to run, and he wished, more than ever, that the river was not frozen, since he would not have been a bit afraid if he could have jumped in the flowing stream to swim away. He was not afraid of any creature in the water, and the fishes were friends of his.
Then, all at once, just as Toto was going to start to run and do his best on the slippery ice, he felt himself falling. He had been standing on the edge of the frozen river, where the ice was very thin, and it had given away, letting him down through a hole into the water.
“Oh, now I’m all right!” said Toto to himself when he felt the water wetting his thick fur, though it could not wet his skin beneath.
And so he was. He was in water now, where he felt much more at home than on the ice. [And as he slipped down, tail first through the hole] that had broken, he had a glimpse of the little girl.
The little girl saw Toto, too, and as soon as she had seen him she clapped her red-mittened hands again and cried:
“Oh, it’s a little beaver! He knocked my skate out to me! Oh, don’t go away, little beaver!” cried Millie. “I won’t hurt you!”
But of course Toto did not know that, and he did not know what the little girl was saying. He just wanted to get away from her, and back to his own stick house. So he dived down under the water, his fur being so thick and warm that he was not a bit cold. And away he swam beneath the ice that covered Winding River.