Blackie dug her claws into the soft bark and held on as tightly as she could. She was a little afraid, but she need not have been, for Toto knew what he was about. Very slowly and gently the tree swayed over. It fell among the bushes with hardly a crash, the boughs and the underbrush making a cushion. And now the trunk was so close to the ground that Blackie easily leaped down.
“Oh, thank you, very much, for helping me,” she mewed to Toto. “I thought I’d never get down, or see my kind lady mistress again. She is very sad these days, and if she lost me she would be more sad.”
“What is she sad about?” asked Toto.
“Because her house was broken into the other day by some bad men, she thinks,” explained Blackie. “They took away a box of jewelry she had hidden under the bed. And in the box was a bracelet for a nice little girl. This little girl pets me and gives me milk when she comes to see her grandmother, with whom I now live. And sometimes I go to stay at the little girl’s house.”
“Why, how surprising!” exclaimed Toto. “I think I know the house you mean! I saw some ragged men go in there and come out with a box. A boy chased them and then the boy chased me.”
“What did the men do with the box?” asked Blackie. “Oh, how exciting! Maybe we can find it and make my mistress happy again.”
Toto slowly flapped his flat tail.
“The men went into the woods with the box,” he said. “That is all I know.”
“What woods?” asked Blackie.
“Well, the woods not very far from here,” answered the beaver.