because there were likely to be occasions when 
there was neither water nor soft mud right at 
hand. Without one of those two things, of 
course, tail-thwacking would not give a sound 
loud enough to be counted upon. So Mother 
Beaver had one more lesson to give on the art of 
escaping the enemy. But that lesson she saved 
for another evening. 
On that evening, Ilg was, as before, always 
the last to dive. This was not because of any 
stupidity on Ilg’s part, but was due to his 
greediness. He simply could not bear to leave 
the sapling without one or two more bites of 
that delicious young bark. This would not do 
at all. Ilg must do as the others did. Mother 
Beaver tried again and again, but still the 
greedy little fellow was always tardy. Then, 
her patience exhausted, she thwacked him, and 
after that Ilg did a little better. However, it 
was plainly to be seen that he would never be 
as good at answering signals as were O-Go 
and Ela. 
With all this work at learning the new signal 
and becoming letter perfect at the old one, 
the three little beavers grew very tired indeed. 
Therefore they were glad, when Mother Beaver 
ceased her instruction, and allowed them to 
settle down in earnest to their meal of aspen 
bark. O-Go, for one, felt that he had had 
enough of diving to last him for a long while. 
30 
