Toto showed his orange-colored teeth, opening his lips as a dog does when he snarls. Toto knew he could bite and bite hard, and that was all he thought of now.
“Oh ho! showing your teeth, are you?” exclaimed the boy, as he drew back his hand. “Well, I must be careful! But I won’t hurt you, poor fellow. I’m sorry you are caught in my trap, but I am glad I didn’t use one with sharp teeth.
“And I want a beaver for a pet, or else I’d let you go. But I’ll be good to you. I’ll take you home with me and you can have a nice little cage to live in, and I’ll give you apples and bark to eat every day. I guess you like apples, ’cause you ate the one I used to bait my trap,” went on the boy.
Toto looked at this boy. For a moment the beaver thought he might be the same one who had chased the tramps, but of this Toto could not be sure. He did not know much about boys or men.
“Yes, I’ll take you home to our houseboat and treat you kindly,” went on the boy. “Dad said I couldn’t catch anything in my trap, but I did. And now I wonder how I can get you home without having you bite me? I guess I can put you in a bag.”
The boy had a cloth bag in his pocket, and, opening this, he poked Toto into it, using a stick. The beaver tried not to go in, for he was afraid the bag was a worse trap than the one in which he was already caught. But the chain held the beaver fast and he had to do just as the boy wanted.
And so, a little later, Toto found himself shut up in a bag, trap, chain and all, and being carried away over the boy’s shoulder. The trap was still fast to the beaver’s leg, and he wished it would be loosened, for it hurt.
Then, if Toto had been a boy or a girl, he would have cried. But beavers don’t do that.
Toto did not know where the boy was taking him, but it seemed a long way through the woods, and, after a while, the beaver felt himself being set down, inside the bag as he was.
“Where have you been?” asked some one of the boy.