“Hey!” called Snowshoe Bill, the Big Woods guide, one morning. “The boat is gone. Did one of you fellows go fishing last night and forget to tie it up?”
    The tenderfoot flushed. He was always doing something wrong. “I’m the one that had it last,” he confessed, “and I forgot to tie it up. What do you suppose has happened to it?”
    “Well,” speculated the guide, “My private opinion is that the boat hound got it.”
    “The boat hound! Never heard of suchathing!”
    “Didn’t, huh? Well, he’s about the meanest customer I’ve ever run into. He sneaks along in the dark looking for boats that careless folks forget to tie and when he finds one, he swallows it right down. He has a great long body shaped like a boat, with big froglike feet, and four ears. With the front two he can hear everything in front of h’en, and with the back two he hears everything behind him. He has a big mouth like an alligator’s.”
    “Where does this queer creature keep himself during the day?” the tenderfoot inquired with a little grin.
    “He sleeps on the bottom of the lake in the daytime, but at night he’s wide wake, all right, looking for boats. Just you remember about him next time you take a boat out, young man.”