to be investigated, and that at once. He would 
go out to them and look them over. With¬ 
out stopping to thwack, O-Go slipped into 
the pond, and started on his way. 
O-Go did not finish that short journey; 
for Mother Loon, who had been watching 
him from the moment when he came out of 
the woods, did not await his arrival. With 
an angry squawk, she was upon the little 
beaver before he had travelled three yards from 
the shore; and was busily hammering him 
with her powerful wings and her hard beak. 
No beaver ever took a worse beating than 
that angry mother loon gave to poor O-Go. 
O-Go dived, but this effort to escape the 
angry mother loon was useless, for she under¬ 
stood the art of underwater swimming as well 
as he did. She kept right after him, nipping 
him sharply, and he therefore came again to 
the surface. Here, he was even worse off, as 
the loon had now the use of her mighty wings 
as weapons. Never had O-Go been more 
frightened than he was then, for the blows 
he was receiving were both numerous and 
painful. It is true that his hurts were not dan¬ 
gerous ones, but O-Go was kept too busy 
to realize that. 
The whipping which that mother bird was 
giving to O-Go might have lasted even longer 
than it did, had not the noise of the battle 
72 
