“I won’t,” promised Toto. Then he waddled off through the woods, after having swum across the beaver pond, made by damming the river, and soon he found himself under the green trees.
“I wonder if I’ll meet Don, the nice dog, or Whitie, the cat?” thought Toto. “Let me see, was Whitie her name? No, it was Blackie. I wonder if I’ll meet her, or that little girl who scared me so that day on the ice?”
Toto looked off through the trees, but he saw neither Don nor Blackie.
Toto found a place where some aspen bark grew on trees, and he gnawed off and ate as much as he wanted. Then he walked on a little farther and, pretty soon, he saw something in the woods that looked like a big beaver house. It was a heap of branches and limbs of trees, and over the outside were big sheets and strips of rough bark.
“But that can’t be a beaver house,” thought Toto. “It isn’t near water, and no beavers would build a house unless it had water near it. I wonder what it is.”
Toto sat up on his tail and looked at the queer object. Then all at once he heard rough voices speaking, and he saw some ragged men come out of the pile of bark. One or two of them had tin cans in their hands, and another was holding a pan over a fire that blazed on a flat rock.
“Oh, I know who they are!” said Toto to himself. “These must be the tramps Don was looking for. This is the tramp camp! I’ve found the bad men. I wish I could find Don to tell him!”