egan chewing as hard as they could. Every
once in a while one tiger would look into another's mouth and say,
"Nope, it's not done yet," until finally they were all so busy looking
into each other's mouths to make sure that no one was getting ahead
that they forgot all about my father.

_Chapter Six_

MY FATHER MEETS A RHINOCEROS

My father soon found a trail leading away from the clearing. All sorts
of animals might be using it too, but he decided to follow the trail
no matter what he met because it might lead to the dragon. He kept a
sharp lookout in front and behind and went on.

Just as he was feeling quite safe, he came around a curve right behind
the two wild boars. One of them was saying to the other, "Did you know
that the tortoises thought they saw Monkey carrying his sick
grandmother to the doctor's last night? But Monkey's grandmother died
a week ago, so they must have seen something else. I wonder what it
was."

"I told you that there was an invasion afoot," said the other boar,
"and I intend to find out what it is. I simply can't stand invasions."

"Nee meither," said a tiny little voice. "I mean, me neither," and my
father knew that the mouse was there, too.

"Well," said the first boar, "you search the trail up this way to the
dragon. I'll go back down the other way through the big clearing, and
we'll send Mouse to watch the Ocean Rocks in case the invasion should
decide to go away before we find it."

[Illustration]

My father hid behind a mahogany tree just in time, and the first boar
walked right past him. My father waited for the other boar to get a
head start on him, but he didn't wait very long because he knew that
when the first boar saw the tigers chewing gum in the clearing, he'd
be even more suspicious.

Soon the trail crossed a little brook and my father, who by this time
was very thirsty, stopped to get a drink of water. He still had on his
rubber boots, so he waded into a little pool of water and was stooping
down when something quite sharp picked him up by the seat of the pants
and shook him very hard.

"Don't you know that's my private weeping pool?" said a deep angry
voice.

My father couldn't see who was talking because he was hanging in the
air right over the pool, but he said, "Oh, no, I'm so sorry. I didn't
know that everybody had a private weeping pool."

[Illustration]

"Everybody doesn't!" said the angry voice, "but I do because I have
such a big thing to