"You have met the Otter," she cried, her eyes growing very big, "and you've been fighting." Father Beaver chuckled. "Last summer," he said, turning to Phil, "I was only two years old, and that Otter punished me so severely that but for Mother Beaver there, who came to my rescue in the nick of time, I should have been done for. But now--well, he will never trouble me again!" Phil looked at him with a new reverence. The Otter, he knew, was a fierce foe to Beavers, with whom he disputed the lordship of the river; that Father Beaver should have conquered him single handed filled him with awe. "Let us hear all about it!" cried Mother Beaver, coming quite close to him. But he brushed her aside good-humouredly, and spoke of other things. "The Night Wind says that the frosts will come early this fall," he remarked, "and we are well into the summer now. There is a fine plantation of willows on the river-bank, only waiting for us to fell them. We will get to work at once. I shall be downright glad to begin." "So shall we all," said Mother Beaver heartily. "Holiday-making is well enough for a while, but if we did not use our teeth on something harder than soft bark and lily roots, they would soon grow dull." "Yours are as bright as the gleam of the moon on the water, my love," said Father Beaver with a glance of admiration; and Mother Beaver gave him an affectionate push, which was as near to a hug as she could go. When they reached the group of trees that Father Beaver had planned to attack first, other Beavers belonging to the colony were already at work. These nodded kindly to Phil, but were too much absorbed in what they were at to take much notice of him. Mother Beaver was deputed to see what he could do, while the young Beavers were given a first lesson by their proud father. Choosing a stout young sapling very close to the bank, Mother Beaver gnawed round it with her sharp, chisel-like teeth, taking care to bite most deeply on the side nearest the water, so that it might fall towards the stream and be quickly floated. In a very few moments it toppled over, cut clean through, and Mother Beaver looked round for another. "We'll try that big one over there," she cried, with an approving glance at her young ones, who were hard at work on some slender willows. Phil hesitated and flushed, for he did not know how to begin. Mother Beaver touched him pityingly with her small forepaw. "I forgot your teeth were so small and weak, my dear. It's not your fault, so you need not be ashamed. When I have felled the tree, you shall drag it down to the bank. That will be a great help, and leave us free for felling." The tree took much longer to fell than the sapling had done, for the trunk was nearly as thick as a man's body. Phil was immensely interested to see how Mother Beaver set about her task; he had guessed from the first that she was remarkably clever, but now he was quite sure of it.