mped down as hard
as we could. The industrious beavers spent hours over it, with only one
easy to eat cake in. And at last the dam rose to the level of the bank.
Then the beavers collected a great heap of clay, and four of them lifted
it and dumped it down in the opening where the water was running. It did
splash a little, but a true-hearted beaver knows better than to mind a
bit of a wetting, as Oswald told Alice at the time. Then with more clay
the work was completed. We must have used tons of clay; there was quite
a big long hole in the bank above the dam where we had taken it out.

When our beaver task was performed we went on, and Dicky was so hot he
had to take his jacket off and shut up about icebergs.

I cannot tell you about all the windings of the stream; it went through
fields and woods and meadows, and at last the banks got steeper and
higher, and the trees overhead darkly arched their mysterious branches,
and we felt like the princes in a fairy tale who go out to seek their
fortunes.

And then we saw a thing that was well worth coming all that way for; the
stream suddenly disappeared under a dark stone archway, and however much
you stood in the water and stuck your head down between your knees you
could not see any light at the other end.

The stream was much smaller than where we had been beavers.

Gentle reader, you will guess in a moment who it was that said:

"Alice, you've got a candle. Let's explore."

This gallant proposal met but a cold response.

The others said they didn't care much about it, and what about tea?

I often think the way people try to hide their cowardliness behind their
teas is simply beastly.

Oswald took no notice. He just said, with that dignified manner, not at
all like sulking, which he knows so well how to put on:

"All right. _I'm_ going. If you funk it you'd better cut along home and
ask your nurses to put you to bed."

So then, of course, they agreed to go. Oswald went first with the
candle. It was not comfortable; the architect of that dark, subterranean
passage had not imagined any one would ever be brave enough to lead a
band of beavers into its inky recesses, or he would have built it high
enough to stand upright in. As it was, we were bent almost at a right
angle, and this is very awkward if for long.

But the leader pressed dauntlessly on, and paid no attention to the
groans of his faithful followers, nor to what they said about their
backs.

It reall