did not appear to be making any effort at swim¬ 
ming. O-Go glanced again. Yes; the strange 
beaver was swimming towards him, but com¬ 
ing so slowly and quietly that he seemed 
scarcely to move at all. What a queer head he 
had! The hairs about his mouth were so thick 
as to form a regular moustache. O-Go had 
never before seen a beaver like that one. O-Go 
felt a faint twinge of alarm. 
Just at that moment came a slight whisper 
of breeze, bringing with it the stranger’s odor, 
and O-Go’s nostrils told him that something 
was very wrong. The stranger wasn’t a beaver 
at all, but an otter. 
His heart hammering with sudden terror, 
O-Go thwacked and dived, swimming with 
all the power of his webbed hind feet. Nor 
had he been a moment too soon in starting that 
flight, for only his thirty-foot start saved him 
from the first fierce rush of his enemy. The 
otter was not so heavy as a full-grown beaver, 
and was capable of much faster swimming. 
This was because of his more slender body and 
his four webbed feet. So swift was he, in fact, 
that he readily overtook and captured even the 
fleetest of fish, the trout and the grayling. 
Down, down went O-Go, for he had been 
in one of the few places where the depth of 
the pond was over six feet. But the otter kept 
right after him. It would have been the end 
97 
