THE MATING OF BROWNIE 179 
way. Finally, he has a heavy flat tail, large at 
the base, to act as a rudder. Altogether, he 
doesn’t need a toboggan made of ash boards; his 
own tummy does very nicely. So Brownie and 
his playmates found. Hunting out a spot where 
the stream had cut into the deep, alluvial loam of 
the meadows, making a high, steep bank, they 
simply went head foremost over the top, giving 
themselves a helping shove with their hind feet, 
and slid, splash! into the water. Then out they 
scrambled, and did it all over again. After an 
hour of this sport, they would wear a regular 
little toboggan slide into the bank, about sixteen 
or eighteen inches wide, and smooth as glass 
where their wet bodies had converted the bottom 
into mud. Nor were Pa and Ma Otter in the 
least averse to shooting this chute, either. In 
fact, they often joined in the sport with all the 
zest of the village deacon on a spree at Coney 
Island, their dignity quite forgotten. 
But their caution was not forgotten. Let 
someone be heard approaching through the fields, 
or a dog barking near by, and Pa Otter would go 
down the slide with a bark of warning, followed 
