After swishing, swirling, tumbling and plunging up and down they got most of the burdocks off. When burdocks get wet the globes of clingers fall apart more easily. Unfortunately, each friend was pretty well on their own in the stream. Moving too close to one another, they risked becoming reattached. Each had to proclaim when they were completely clear of the burdensome burdocks.

That ordeal dealt with, they were able to focus on their next plan. They would travel in full daylight to do an investigation exercise for planning out prevention of any possible pitfalls. When they returned to that dreadful spot they were relieved to see there weren't many burdocks left. Most of the burdocks at this time, thankfully, were floating down the river.

Sweet Puppy, in pursuit of something living underground, discovered a large hole or deep pit at the edge of a grass-covered bank. Such a perilous pitfall could have caused quite a commotion if any or all of them had fallen into that darkness. At least that calamity was curtailed. What could be left?

It didn't take long for the answer to that rhetorical question to reveal itself. They wanted to get as near as safely possible to the path the creatures appeared to follow. Between them and their target was a wide swamp through which they would have to muck their muddy way. Doubts were doubling. Bea was beginning to do her brain exercise to size up whether any of this was worth it anymore. It just seemed too difficult, too complicated. Discouragement was setting in.

Summing up the courage to announce that she was calling the whole thing off was interrupted when Scruffles announced that he'd found a way around or over or across. Without warning, he dived into the nearby edge of the swamp. Both Sweet Puppy and Bea were horrified; they would never employ that tactic. What could they do to save that rip-roaring raccoon cat?

But they needn't have bothered worry. He was already in the deepest part. To their relief and surprise, he snaked in and out of the water all the way across. When he was safely on the other side, they all nervously laughed. Both Bea and Sweet Puppy's eyes couldn't have gotten any wider when they watched Scruffles' next trick. He began slowly slinking toward their side of the swamp. Instead of leaping through the water he pattered across the surface dampening only the bottoms of his paws. He went in and out of their view. Most of the area he traveled through was blocked by weeds.

Before they could ask any questions, with their muzzles wide open they listened to his explanation for such strange behavior. He told them he had done his investigation exercises while Sweet Puppy was sniffing out underground homes. He had noticed Bea was standing there doing her other-worldly thinking. She often traveled there in her head during her brain exercises when things were too challenging to figure out.

We know that Bea was probably doing her talk to the maker. She had a need for courage and a solution. It appears the maker had heard her. Scruffles told the story of how his head had bumped into something in the middle of the swamp, something hard. He judged it to be too long and too thin to be a fallen tree.

With her eyes spying the area, Bea did her notice exercise and detected no sign that Timothy had been there. There were no fallen trees brought down by a wood carving, clay pot making beaver. So what could it be? When Bea looked up, Scruffles was standing on the other side of the swamp again. He had made no alarming splashing sound and was still barely wet. Strutting back to Bea and Sweet Puppy he volunteered to show them where to place their feet, paws, and claws to cross.

He had just walked across an unidentified something quite concealed by the wringing wet ragged reeds. Bea knew she didn't want to get wet. She deferred the trying task to Sweet Puppy who agreed to follow Scruffles step by step. Scruffles disappeared first. Sweet Puppy looked back at Bea with a desperate look in her eyes.

Fears were growing slowly. Had she made a drastic mistake? She had sent the two she was commissioned by the maker to care of, into a dangerous unknown. Sweet Puppy disappeared next. Where had they gone? What had just swallowed them up? Bea could stand it no more. She had to go look. To see. To understand.