, managed to get his
breath and open his eyes. He wallowed a bit more, and then sat up, his
nose full of dirt, and moss and grass hanging all over his face. He
was a sight, I tell you! And how he did dislike himself!

"As he sat there, thinking how he'd ever get away from himself, he
caught sight of Stripes, strolling off quietly over the brown hillocks.
Sitting back on his haunches, he blinked at the little, leisurely
black-and-white figure.

"'And to think I was going to eat _that_!' he said to himself sadly."

CHAPTER XV

DAGGER BILL AND THE WATER BABIES

"What's that?" demanded the Babe nervously, as a peal of wild, crazy
laughter rang out over the surface of the lake.

"Why, don't you know what _that_ is yet?" Said Uncle Andy with a
superior air. "That's old Dagger Bill, the big black-and-white loon.
Sounds as if he was terribly amused, doesn't he? But he's only calling
to his big black-and-white mate, or the two little Dagger Bills they
hatched out in the spring."

"What does _he_ do?" asked the Babe.

"I don't _know_ much about that fellow," answered Uncle Andy. "Now you
see him, and now you don't. Mostly you don't; and, when you do, as
likely as not it's only his snaky black head, with its sharp dagger of
a bill, stuck up out of the water to keep track of you. He's _most_
unsociable. If anyone tells you he knows all about a loon, you wink to
yourself and pretend you are not listening. But I'll tell you who _do_
know something about old Dagger Bill--the Water Babies.

"Who're the Water Babies?" demanded the Babe.

"Why don't you know _that_? The little muskrats, of course, that live
in the warm, dry, dark nest under the dome of their mud house, out in
the water--the house with its doors so far under water that no one can
get into it without diving and swimming."

"It must be cozy and awfully safe," said the Babe, who began to want a
place like that himself.

"Yes, _fine_!" agreed Uncle Andy. "And safe from everything but the
mink; and if _he_ came in by one door, there was always another door
open for them to get out by, so quick that the mink could never see
their tails.

"Old Dagger Bill, of course, could never get into the house of the
Water Babies, for all his wonderful swimming and diving, because he was
so big--as big as a goose. But, as a rule, he wouldn't want to bother
the Water Babies. Fish were much more to Dagger Bill's taste than
young muskrat; and he could swim s