Suddenly Toto heard a voice speaking to him in the beloved animal language he knew so well.
“Hello there, beaver boy!” called the voice. “What are you doing on that boat?”
“Oh, I don’t know what you mean by ‘boat,’” answered Toto, “but I don’t want to be on it, whatever it is. But who are you? Can’t you help me?”
“No, I am sorry to say I can not,” was the answer. “Don’t you remember me? I am Slicko, the jumping squirrel, and I live in one of the trees near your beaver pond.”
“Oh, Slicko, see what’s happened to me!” cried Toto, looking from his cage and seeing the squirrel frisking about in the trees on shore near the boat. “I was caught in a trap, and now I’m in a cage.”
“Yes, I see you are,” answered Slicko. “I wish I could help you, but I can’t. I was caught in a trap once, myself, and I lived in a funny cage with a wheel. But I got away, after I had had many adventures, and now I am back in the woods again. A man wrote a book about me, too.”
“Well, I wouldn’t care how many books they wrote about me if I could only get out of this cage,” sighed Toto. “I don’t know what a book is, and I don’t much care. I heard Don and Blackie talk about them, though.”
“Oh, do you know Don and Blackie?” asked Slicko, as she kept running along in the trees, chattering away to Toto and keeping up with the slowly moving houseboat.
“Yes, I know them a little,” answered the beaver.