He began to gnaw at it once more. But he hadn’t
moved more than half-way around the tree-trunk when
something happened that almost frightened him out
of his skin.
Right out of the darkness came a blinding flash of
light. And at the same time a queer click
sounded in the bushes close by.
Just for a moment Brownie Beaver was stiff with fear.
But when the darkness closed in upon him again he
ran for his life toward the pond. And plunging
into the water he swam quickly to the bottom and hurried
up his winding hall into his bedroom, where he crouched
trembling upon his bed, wondering whether he had been
shot.
Brownie knew that at night a gun made a flash of light.
But this gun (if it was a gun) made no roar such as
was made by the guns Brownie had sometimes heard at
a distance in the woods. He wished that old Grandaddy
Beaver was there. For he did not doubt that the
old gentleman could tell him exactly what had happened.
JASPER JAY’S STORY
After the blinding flash of light and the queer click
had sent Brownie Beaver hurrying home from his partly
gnawed tree, he stayed in his house for a long time
before he ventured out again.
Indeed, the night was half gone when he at last he
stole forth to find Grandaddy Beaver and tell him
about his awful fright.
Brownie found the old gentleman resting after several
hours’ work upon the big dam. And when
young Brownie told Grandaddy what had happened, the
old gentleman didn’t know just what to think.
“It couldn’t have been a moonbeam,”
he said, “because there’s no moon to-night.
And I don’t see how it could have been a gun,
because there was no roar.... Did you hear a
sort of whistle?” he asked. “Anything
that sounded like a bullet passing over your head?”
Brownie Beaver shuddered at the mere mention of a
bullet.
“I heard nothing but that odd click,”
he replied.
“That’s what a gun sounds like when it’s
cocked,” said Grandaddy Beaver. “But
with a gun, the click comes first, the flash next,
and the roar last of all. And here you tell me
the flash came first, the click next, and there was
no roar at all.... What’s a body a-going
to think, I’d like to know? It wasn’t
a gun—that’s sure. And if you
want to know what I say about it, why—I
say that it was a very strange thing that happened
to you. And I’d keep away from that tree
for a long time.”
“I had made up my mind that I’d do that,”
Brownie told him. And then he went home again.
But he never went to sleep until almost noon the following
day; for whenever he closed his eyes he seemed to see
that blinding flash of light again.
When Jasper Jay came on Saturday afternoon to tell
Brownie Beaver what had happened in the world during
the past week he had an astounding piece of news.
“Here’s something about you,” Jasper
told Brownie, as soon as he could catch his breath.
Jasper had flown faster than usual that day, because
he had such interesting news. “Your picture,”
he told Brownie, “is in the photographer’s
window, way over in the town where Farmer Green goes
sometimes.”
