“Oh, I’ve been off in the woods, Dad!” answered the boy. “And, what do you think? I caught a beaver in my trap! A beaver!”
Of course Toto did not understand these words, but he could hear the boy and his father talking. Then the bag was opened, and Toto tried to jump out. But some one caught him round the middle of his body, in strong hands, and Toto could not turn his head to bite. Toto saw that a man was holding him, and the boy was standing near. And all around was water. Toto could see it and smell it.
At first he thought he was back at the dear old beaver pond, and he looked for the dam, for Cuppy, for his father and the others. But a second look showed him that this was not the beaver pond. It was another body of water—much larger. But still Toto wished, with all his heart, that he was in that water.
“I’d soon get away from them by swimming, if they’d let me go and would take this trap off my leg,” thought Toto.
But the man was not going to let him go. He held tightly to Toto, and the beaver could not bite.
“Take the trap off his leg, Donald,” said the boy’s father. “It must hurt him. I hope the leg isn’t broken. If you want a beaver for a pet you should have used a box trap, that would not have hurt him.”
“I didn’t know I was going to catch a beaver,” replied the boy. “But I’m glad I did. I’ll make a little cage for him, and feed him bark and apples. You hold him, Dad, while I take off the trap.”
So while the man held Toto, with his hands on the middle of the fat beaver’s body, the boy opened the trap and slipped it from the animal’s leg. And you can well guess that Toto was very glad of this. The pain stopped when the trap was taken off, and, aside from a little sore place on his leg, the beaver was not hurt.
