Chapter 3

Everybody knew that Paddy the Beaver was laying up a supply of food for the winter, and everybody thought it was queer food. That is, everybody but Prickly Porky the Porcupine thought so. Prickly Porky likes the same kind of food, but he never lays up a supply. He just goes out and gets it when he wants it, winter or summer. What kind of food was it? Why, bark, to be sure. Yes, Sir, it was just bark--the bark of certain kinds of trees.

Now Prickly Porky can climb the trees and eat the bark right there, but Paddy the Beaver cannot climb, and if he should just eat the bark that he can reach from the ground it would take such a lot of trees to keep him filled up that he would soon spoil the Green Forest. You know, when the bark is taken off a tree all the way around, the tree dies. That is because all the things that a tree draws out of the ground to make it grow and keep it alive are carried up from the roots in the sap, and the sap cannot go up the tree trunks and into the branches when the bark is taken off, because it is up the inside of the bark that it travels. So when the bark is taken from a tree all the way around the trunk, the tree just starves to death.

Now Paddy the Beaver loves the Green Forest as dearly as you and I do, and perhaps even a little more dearly. You see, it is his home. Besides, Paddy never is wasteful. So he cuts down a tree so that he can get all the bark instead of killing a whole lot of trees for a very little bark, as he might do if he were lazy. There isn't a lazy bone in him--not one. The bark he likes best is from the aspen. When he cannot get that, he will eat the bark from the poplar, the alder, the willow, and even the birch. But he likes the aspen so much better that he will work very hard to get it. Perhaps it tastes better because he does have to work so hard for it.

There were some aspen-trees growing right on the edge of the pond Paddy had made in the Green Forest. These he cut just as he had cut the trees for his dam. As soon as a tree was down, he would cut it into short lengths, and with these swim out to where the water was deep, close to his new house. He took them one by one and carried the first ones to the bottom, where he pushed them into the mud just enough to hold them. Then, as fast as he brought more, he piled them on the first ones. And so the pile grew and grew.

Jerry Muskrat, Peter Rabbit, Bobby Coon, and the other little people of the Green Forest watched him with the greatest interest and curiosity. They couldn't quite make out what he was doing. It was almost as if he were building the foundation for another house.

"What's he doing, Jerry?" demanded Peter, when he could keep still no longer.

"I don't exactly know," replied Jerry. "He said that he was going to lay in a supply of food for the winter, just as I told you, and I suppose that is what he is doing. But I don't quite understand what he is taking it all out into the pond for. I believe I'll go ask him."

"Do, and then come tell us," begged Peter, who was growing so curious that he couldn't sit still.

So Jerry swam out to where Paddy was so busy. "Is this your food supply, Cousin Paddy?" he asked.

"Yes," replied Paddy, crawling up on the side of his house to rest. "Yes, this is my food supply. Isn't it splendid?"

"I guess it is," replied Jerry, trying to be polite, "though I like lily-roots and clams better. But what are you going to do with it? Where is your storehouse?"

"This pond is my storehouse," replied Paddy. "I will make a great pile right here close to my house, and the water will keep it nice and fresh all winter. When the pond is frozen over, all I will have to do is to slip out of one of my doorways down there on the bottom, swim over here and get a stick, and fill my stomach. Isn't it handy?"

XIV

A FOOTPRINT IN THE MUD

Very early one morning Paddy the Beaver heard Sammy Jay making a terrible fuss over in the aspen-trees on the edge of the pond Paddy had made in the Green Forest. Paddy couldn't see because he was inside his house, and it has no window, but he could hear. He wrinkled up his brows thoughtfully.

"Seems to me that Sammy is very much excited this morning," said he, talking to himself, a way he has because he is so much alone. "When he screams like that, Sammy is usually trying to do two things at once--make trouble for somebody and keep somebody else out of trouble; and when you come to think of it, that's rather a funny way of doing. It shows that he isn't all bad, and at the same time he is a long way from being all good. Now, I should say from the sounds that Sammy has discovered Reddy Fox trying to steal up on some one over where my aspen-trees are growing. Reddy is afraid of me, but I suspect that he knows that Peter Rabbit has been hanging around here a lot lately, watching me work, and he thinks perhaps he can catch Peter. I shall have to whisper in one of Peter's long ears and tell him to watch out."

After a while he heard Sammy Jay's voice growing fainter and fainter in the Green Forest. Finally he couldn't hear it at all. "Whoever was there has gone away, and Sammy has followed just to torment them," thought Paddy. He was very busy making a bed. He is very particular about his bed, is Paddy the Beaver. He makes it of fine splinters of wood which he splits off with those wonderful great cutting teeth of his. This makes the driest kind of a bed. It requires a great deal of patience and work, but patience is one of the first things a little Beaver learns, and honest work well done is one of the greatest pleasures in the world, as Paddy long ago found out for himself. So he kept at work on his bed for some time after all was still outside.

At last Paddy decided that he would go over to his aspen-trees and look them over to decide which ones he would cut the next night. He slid down one of his long halls, out the doorway at the bottom of the pond, and then swam up to the surface, where he floated for a few minutes with just his head out of water. And all the time his eyes and nose and ears were busy looking, smelling, and listening for any sign of danger. Everything was still. Sure that he was quite safe, Paddy swam across to the place where the aspen-trees grew, and waddled out on the shore.

Paddy looked this way and looked that way. He looked up in the tree tops, and he looked off up the hill, but most of all he looked at the ground. Yes, Sir, Paddy just studied the ground. You see, he hadn't forgotten the fuss Sammy Jay had been making there, and he was trying to find out what it was all about. At first he didn't see anything unusual, but by and by he happened to notice a little wet place, and right in the middle of it was something that made Paddy's eyes open wide. It was a footprint! Some one had carelessly stepped in the mud.

"Ha!" exclaimed Paddy, and the hair on his back lifted ever so little, and for a minute he had a prickly feeling all over. The footprint was very much like that of Reddy Fox, only it was larger.

"Ha!" said Paddy again, "that certainly is the footprint of Old Man Coyote! I see I have got to watch out more sharply than I had thought for. All right, Mr. Coyote; now that I know you are about, you'll have to be smarter than I think you are to catch me. You certainly will be back here to-night looking for me, so I think I'll do my cutting right now in the daytime."

XV

SAMMY JAY MAKES PADDY A CALL

Paddy the Beaver was hard at work. He had just cut down a good-sized aspen-tree and now he was gnawing it into short lengths to put in his food pile in the pond. As he worked, Paddy was doing a lot of thinking about the footprint of Old Man Coyote in a little patch of mud, for he knew that meant that Old Man Coyote had discovered his pond, and would be hanging around, hoping to catch Paddy off his guard. Paddy knew it just as well as if Old Man Coyote had told him so. That was why he was at work cutting his food supply in the daytime. Usually he works at night, and he knew that Old Man Coyote knew it.

"He'll try to catch me then," thought Paddy, "so I'll do my working on land now and fool him."

The tree he was cutting began to sway and crack. Paddy cut out one more big chip, then hurried away to a safe place while the tree fell with a crash.

"Thief! thief! thief!" screamed a voice just back of Paddy.

"Hello, Sammy Jay! I see you don't feel any better than usual this morning," said Paddy. "Don't you want to sit up in this tree while I cut it down?"

Sammy grew black in the face with anger, for he knew that Paddy was laughing at him. You remember how only a few days before he had been so intent on calling Paddy bad names that he actually hadn't noticed that Paddy was cutting the very tree in which he was sitting, and so when it fell he had had a terrible fright.

"You think you are very smart, Mr. Beaver, but you'll think differently one of these fine days!" screamed Sammy. "If you knew what I know, you wouldn't be so well satisfied with yourself."

"What do you know?" asked Paddy, pretending to be very much alarmed.

"I'm not going to tell you what I know," retorted Sammy Jay. "You'll find out soon enough. And when you do find out, you'll never steal another tree from our Green Forest. Somebody is going to catch you, and it isn't Farmer Brown's boy either!"

Paddy pretended to be terribly frightened. "Oh, who is it? Please tell me, Mr. Jay," he begged.

Now to be called Mr. Jay made Sammy feel very important. Nearly everybody else called him Sammy. He swelled himself out trying to look as important as he felt, and his eyes snapped with pleasure. He was actually making Paddy the Beaver afraid. At least he thought he was.

"No, Sir, I won't tell you," he replied. "I wouldn't be you for a great deal though! Somebody who is smarter than you are is going to catch you, and when he gets through with you, there won't be anything left but a few bones. No, Sir, nothing but a few bones!"

"Oh, Mr. Jay, this is terrible news! Whatever am I to do?" cried Paddy, all the time keeping right on at work cutting another tree.

"There's nothing you can do," replied Sammy, grinning wickedly at Paddy's fright. "There's nothing you can do unless you go right straight back to the North where you came from. You think you are very smart but--"

Sammy didn't finish. Crack! Over fell the tree Paddy had been cutting and the top of it fell straight into the alder in which Sammy was sitting. "Oh! Oh! Help!" shrieked Sammy, spreading his wings and flying away just in time.

Paddy sat down and laughed until his sides ached. "Come make me another call some day, Sammy!" he said. "And when you do, please bring some real news. I know all about Old Man Coyote. You can tell him for me that when he is planning to catch people he should be careful not to leave footprints to give himself away."

Sammy didn't reply. He just sneaked off through the Green Forest, looking quite as foolish as he felt.

XVI

OLD MAN COYOTE IS VERY CRAFTY

Coyote has a crafty brain; His wits are sharp his ends to gain.

There is nothing in the world more true than that. Old Man Coyote has the craftiest brain of all the little people of the Green Forest or the Green Meadows. Sharp as are the wits of old Granny Fox, they are not quite as sharp as the wits of Old Man Coyote. If you want to fool him, you will have to get up very early in the morning, and then it is more than likely that you will be the one fooled, not he. There is very little going on around him that he doesn't know about. But once in a while something escapes him. The coming of Paddy the Beaver to the Green Forest was one of these things. He didn't know a thing about Paddy until Paddy had finished his dam and his house, and was cutting his supply of food for the winter.

You see, it was this way: When the Merry Little Breezes of Old Mother West Wind first heard what was going on in the Green Forest and hurried around over the Green Meadows and through the Green Forest to spread the news, as is their way, they took the greatest pains not to even hint it to Old Man Coyote because they were afraid that he would make trouble and perhaps drive Paddy away. The place that Paddy had chosen to build his dam was so deep in the Green Forest that Old Man Coyote seldom went that way. So it was that he knew nothing about Paddy, and Paddy knew nothing about him for some time.

But after a while Old Man Coyote noticed that the little people of the Green Meadows were not about as much as usual. They seemed to have a secret of some kind. He mentioned the matter to his friend, Digger the Badger.

Digger had been so intent on his own affairs that he hadn't noticed anything unusual, but when Old Man Coyote mentioned the matter he remembered that Blacky the Crow headed straight for the Green Forest every morning. Several times he had seen Sammy Jay flying in the same direction as if in a great hurry to get somewhere.

Old Man Coyote grinned. "That's all I need to know, friend Digger," said he. "When Blacky the Crow and Sammy Jay visit a place more than once, something interesting is going on there. I think I'll take a stroll up through the Green Forest and have a look around."

With that, off Old Man Coyote started. But he was too sly and crafty to go straight to the Green Forest. He pretended to hunt around over the Green Meadows just as he usually did, all the time working nearer and nearer to the Green Forest. When he reached the edge of it, he slipped in among the trees, and when he felt sure that no one was likely to see him, he began to run this way and that way with his nose to the ground.

"Ha!" he exclaimed presently, "Reddy Fox has been this way lately."

Pretty soon he found another trail. "So," said he, "Peter Rabbit has been over here a good deal of late, and his trail goes in the same direction as that of Reddy Fox. I guess all I have to do now is to follow Peter's trail, and it will lead me to what I want to find out."

So Old Man Coyote followed Peter's trail, and he presently came to the pond of Paddy the Beaver. "Ha!" said he, as he looked out and saw Paddy's new house. "So there is a newcomer to the Green Forest! I have always heard that Beaver is very good eating. My stomach begins to feel empty this very minute." His mouth began to water, and a fierce, hungry look shone in his yellow eyes.

It was just then that Sammy Jay saw him and began to scream at the top of his lungs so that Paddy the Beaver over in his house heard him. Old Man Coyote knew that it was of no use to stay longer with Sammy Jay about, so he took a hasty look at the pond and found where Paddy came ashore to cut his food. Then, shaking his fist at Sammy Jay, he started straight back for the Green Meadows. "I'll just pay a visit here in the night," said he, "and give Mr. Beaver a surprise while he is at work."

But with all his craft, Old Man Coyote didn't notice that he had left a footprint in the mud.

XVII

OLD MAN COYOTE IS DISAPPOINTED

Old Man Coyote lay stretched out in his favorite napping place on the Green Meadows. He was thinking of what he had found out up in the Green Forest that morning--that Paddy the Beaver was living there. Old Man Coyote's thoughts seemed very pleasant to himself, though really they were very dreadful thoughts. You see, he was thinking how easy it was going to be to catch Paddy the Beaver, and what a splendid meal he would make. He licked his chops at the thought.

"He doesn't know I know he's here," thought Old Man Coyote. "In fact, I don't believe he even knows that I am anywhere around. Of course, he won't be watching for me. He cuts his trees at night, so all I will have to do is to hide right close by where he is at work, and he'll walk right into my mouth. Sammy Jay knows I was up there this morning, but Sammy sleeps at night, so he will not give the alarm. My, my, how good that Beaver will taste!" He licked his chops once more, then yawned and closed his eyes for a nap.

Old Man Coyote waited until jolly, round, red Mr. Sun had gone to bed behind the Purple Hills, and the Black Shadows had crept out across the Green Meadows. Then, keeping in the blackest of them, and looking very much like a shadow himself, he slipped into the Green Forest. It was dark in there, and he made straight for Paddy's new pond, trotting along swiftly without making a sound. When he was near the aspen-trees which he knew Paddy was planning to cut, he crept forward very slowly and carefully. Everything was still as still could be.

"Good!" thought Old Man Coyote. "I am here first, and now all I need do is to hide and wait for Paddy to come ashore."

So he stretched himself flat behind some brush close beside the little path Paddy had made up from the edge of the water and waited. It was very still, so still that it seemed almost as if he could hear his heart beat. He could see the little stars twinkling in the sky and their own reflections twinkling back at them from the water of Paddy's pond. Old Man Coyote waited and waited. He is very patient when there is something to gain by it. For such a splendid dinner as Paddy the Beaver would make he felt that he could well afford to be patient. So he waited and waited, and everything was as still as if no living thing but the trees were there. Even the trees seemed to be asleep.

At last, after a long, long time, he heard just the faintest splash. He pricked up his ears and peeped out on the pond with the hungriest look in his yellow eyes. There was a little line of silver coming straight towards him. He knew that it was made by Paddy the Beaver swimming. Nearer and nearer it drew. Old Man Coyote chuckled way down deep inside, without making a sound. He could see Paddy's head now, and Paddy was coming straight in, as if he hadn't a fear in the world.

Almost to the edge of the pond swam Paddy. Then he stopped. In a few minutes he began to swim again, but this time it was back in the direction of his house, and he seemed to be carrying something. It was one of the little food logs he had cut that day, and he was taking it out to his storehouse. Then back he came for another. And so he kept on, never once coming ashore. Old Man Coyote waited until Paddy had carried the last log to his storehouse and then, with a loud whack on the water with his broad tail, had dived and disappeared in his house.

Then Old Man Coyote arose and started elsewhere to look for his dinner, and in his heart was bitter disappointment.

XVIII

OLD MAN COYOTE TRIES ANOTHER PLAN

For three nights Old Man Coyote had stolen up through the Green Forest with the coming of the Black Shadows and had hidden among the aspen-trees where Paddy the Beaver cut his food, and for three nights Paddy had failed to come ashore. Each night he had seemed to have enough food logs in the water to keep him busy without cutting more. Old Man Coyote lay there, and the hungry look in his eyes changed to one of doubt and then to suspicion. Could it be that Paddy the Beaver was smarter than he thought? It began to look very much as if Paddy knew perfectly well that he was hiding there each night. Yes, Sir, that's the way it looked. For three nights Paddy hadn't cut a single tree, and yet each night he had plenty of food logs ready to take to his storehouse in the pond.

"That means that he comes ashore in the daytime and cuts his trees," thought Old Man Coyote as, tired and with black anger in his heart, he trotted home the third night. "He couldn't have found out about me himself; he isn't smart enough. It must be that some one has told him. And nobody knows that I have been over there but Sammy Jay. It must be he who has been the tattletale. I think I'll visit Paddy by daylight to-morrow, and then we'll see!"

Now the trouble with some smart people is that they are never able to believe that others may be as smart as they. Old Man Coyote didn't know that the first time he had visited Paddy's pond he had left behind him a footprint in a little patch of soft mud. If he had known it, he wouldn't have believed that Paddy would be smart enough to guess what that footprint meant. So Old Man Coyote laid all the blame at the door of Sammy Jay, and that very morning, when Sammy came flying over the Green Meadows, Old Man Coyote accused him of being a tattletale and threatened the most dreadful things to Sammy if ever he caught him.

Now Sammy had flown down to the Green Meadows to tell Old Man Coyote how Paddy was doing all his work on land in the daytime. But when Old Man Coyote began to call him a tattletale and accuse him of having warned Paddy, and to threaten dreadful things, he straightway forgot all his anger at Paddy and turned it all on Old Man Coyote. He called him everything he could think of, and this was a great deal, for Sammy has a wicked tongue. When he hadn't any breath left, he flew over to the Green Forest, and there he hid where he could watch all that was going on.

That afternoon Old Man Coyote tried his new plan. He slipped into the Green Forest, looking this way and that way to be sure that no one saw him. Then very, very softly, he crept up through the Green Forest towards the pond of Paddy the Beaver. As he drew near, he heard a crash, and it made him smile. He knew what it meant. It meant that Paddy was at work cutting down trees. With his stomach almost on the ground, he crept forward little by little, little by little, taking the greatest care not to rustle so much as a leaf. Presently he reached a place where he could see the aspen-trees, and there sure enough was Paddy, sitting up on his hind legs and hard at work cutting another tree.

Old Man Coyote lay down for a few minutes to watch. Then he wriggled a little nearer. Slowly and carefully he drew his legs under him and made ready for a rush. Paddy the Beaver was his at last! At just that very minute a harsh scream rang out right over his head "Thief! thief! thief!"

It was Sammy Jay, who had silently followed him all the way. Paddy the Beaver didn't stop to even look around. He knew what that scream meant, and he scrambled down his little path to the water as he never had scrambled before. And as he dived with a great splash, Old Man Coyote landed with a great jump on the very edge of the pond.

XIX

PADDY AND SAMMY JAY BECOME FRIENDS

Paddy the Beaver floated in his pond and grinned in the most provoking way at Old Man Coyote, who had so nearly caught him. Old Man Coyote fairly danced with anger on the bank. He had felt so sure of Paddy that time that it was hard work to believe that Paddy had really gotten away from him. He bared his long cruel teeth, and he looked very fierce and ugly.

"Come on in; the water's fine!" called Paddy.

Now, of course, this wasn't a nice thing for Paddy to do, for it only made Old Man Coyote all the angrier. You see, Paddy knew perfectly well that he was absolutely safe, and he just couldn't resist the temptation to say some unkind things. He had had to be on the watch for days lest he should be caught, and so he hadn't been able to work quite so well as he could have done with nothing to fear, and he still had a lot of preparations to make for winter. So he told Old Man Coyote just what he thought of him, and that he wasn't as smart as he thought he was or he never would have left a footprint in the mud to give him away.

When Sammy Jay, who was listening and chuckling as he listened, heard that, he flew down where he would be just out of reach of Old Man Coyote, and then he just turned that tongue of his loose, and you know that some people say that Sammy's tongue is hung in the middle and wags at both ends. Of course, this isn't really so, but when he gets to abusing people it seems as if it must be true. He called Old Man Coyote every bad name he could think of. He called him a sneak, a thief, a coward, a bully, and a lot of other things.