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was only a faint breath--an indefinable promise that brought him to the point of a mysterious anticipation.
The forest grew deeper. It was wonderful virgin forest. There was no undergrowth, and traveling under the trees was like being in a vast, mystery-filled cavern through the roof of which the light of day broke softly, brightened here and there by golden splashes of the sun. For a mile Baree made his way quietly through this forest. He saw nothing but a few winged flirtings of birds; there was almost no sound. Then he came to a still larger pond. Around this pond there was a thick growth of alders and willows where the larger trees had thinned out. He saw the glimmer of afternoon sunlight on the water--and then, all at once, he heard life.
There had been few changes in Beaver Tooth's colony since the days of his feud with Kazan and the otters. Old Beaver Tooth was somewhat older. He was fatter. He slept a great deal, and perhaps he was less cautious. He was dozing on the great mud-and-brushwood dam of which he had been engineer-in-chief, when Baree came out softly on a high bank thirty or forty feet away. So noiseless had Baree been that none of the beavers had seen or heard him. He squatted himself flat on his belly, hidden behind a tuft of grass, and with eager interest watched every movement. Beaver Tooth was rousing himself. He stood on his short legs for a moment; then he tilted himself up on his broad, flat tail like a soldier at attention, and with a sudden whistle dived into the pond with a great splash.
In another moment it seemed to Baree that the pond was alive with beavers. Heads and bodies appeared and disappeared, rushing this way and that through the water in a manner that amazed and puzzled him. It was the colony's evening frolic. Tails hit the water like flat boards. Odd whistlings rose above the splashing--and then as suddenly as it had begun, the play came to an end. There were probably twenty beavers, not counting the young, and as if guided by a common signal--some