A BEAVER LODGE
It will be remembered that before beginning work on the dam the beavers
went to a point a few rods above where it was to be placed and dug three
holes running back from the stream. These holes started at different
points in the bank but all converged at the top of the knoll.
The water had now set back and covered the lower end of the holes near
the stream, but the opening at the top of the knoll was high and dry.
The beavers now set to work with mud, sticks, stones, fine brush, and
weeds, and built a circular wall about eight feet in diameter around the
hole at the top of the knoll. The wall was about two feet thick and
during the first two or three days of building looked for all the world
like the snow fort that children build by rolling huge snowballs into a
circular wall, and then plastering in the cracks with loose snow, only
the beavers' work was more regular and symmetrical than that of the
children.
It was now the first of November and freezing a little each night; just
the best time imaginable for a beaver to work upon his house, for it was
really a house that the beavers were building.
While the November sky was bright with stars, and the milky way was
luminous; while the frost scaled over the edges of their little pond,
and the fresh north winds rapidly stripped the forest of its last
leaves, the beavers worked upon their house with that industry which is
proverbial of them.
They brought mud in their paws or on their broad flat tails, and sticks
and brush in their teeth and plastered away like skilful masons. When a
pile of mud had been placed in the proper position, it would be smoothed
off carefully with the patient fore paws or perhaps that broad strong
tail would come down upon it with a resounding slap and the trick was
done.
When the wall began to round over for the roof, the difficulty began.
Here they had to put in rafters. These were formed of pliable sticks of
alder or willow, one end being stuck in the mud wall, and the other bent
over at the top, until all came together where the chimney would be just
like the poles in an Indian's wigwam. Here they also had to use great
care in placing the mud, for it would frequently fall through between
the rafters, or slide down upon them. If they could work, when it was
freezing, the cold froze the mud to the rafters and helped to keep it in
place. Several times, part of the roof fell in and had to be relaid, but
they still worked away and, finally, all but a very small opening, two
or three inches in diameter, had been closed. This opening was the vent
or chimney, where foul air might escape. This hole had to be just large
enough to permit the escape of hot air, but not large enough to admit
any of their enemies.
The same night that the final touches were put upon the roof of this
curious dome-shaped house, the ground froze hard, and in the morning the
wall of Mr. and Mrs. Beaver's new abode was quite substantial. But later
on when the hard freeze had made the earth like rock, this little mud
house would be a veritable fortress, capable of withstanding almost any
onset with ordinary weapons. Even a man with a crowbar and axe would
have found it a hard task to enter this stronghold of these queer little
people.
[Illustration: THE FINAL TOUCHES WERE PUT UPON THIS CURIOUS DOME-SHAPED
HOUSE]
So you see the beaver had planned his work well and the frost and the
wind had helped him. He had harnessed the stream to do his work, and
made its water protect him from his enemies. Just as men built their
castles in days of old, the beaver had made his dam, so that a moat
should surround his house, where the drawbridge should always be up, and
the only way of entrance or exit should be by water.
You may wonder how after the roof of their house had been closed up, and
no door left, the beavers went to and from their dwelling, but do you
not remember the three holes that had been dug several weeks before.
These were now their three submerged channels to the outer world,
through which only a good swimmer could pass. This was the way they
went. A plunge down the hole at the centre of the lodge, and a dark form
would shoot out at the bank of the river. Perhaps a beaver's head,
dripping with water would be poked up, only a few feet from the mud
house, or maybe they would go the entire width of the pond before
coming to the surface, for they are great swimmers, and can stay down
for several minutes without coming to the surface to breathe.
Besides having three doors through which to escape to their water world,
the beavers took other precautions against being entrapped in their snug
house, or caught in the pond without a place of refuge to flee to.
They searched the bank for places where it was steep or shelving,
overhanging the water. At such points they dug burrows back into the
bank, gradually running them upward, but stopping a foot or two short of
the surface. Here they would scoop out a snug burrow or nest to which
they could retreat when living in the house became dangerous. They made
three or four such burrows, the lower end of each being under water, and
the nest end high and dry, but still underground. By this time they
felt that their pond was fairly well fortified, and they set to work,
laying in their winter store of food, for they knew that the pond would
soon freeze over thus making them prisoners under the ice for the entire
winter, so they must make their plans accordingly.
They went to the upper end of the pond and began felling birch, poplar
and maple saplings, three or four inches in diameter. These small trees
they limbed out, and cut up into pieces about three feet in length, just
as a wood-chopper would cut cord wood.
When a tree had been cut up into these convenient pieces, one of the
beavers would load it upon the shoulders of the other, who would cling
to the stick with his teeth, and they would begin dragging it to the
water. The beaver usually went obliquely, dragging the stick after him,
with one end trailing. When it had been rolled into the water, it was
left to the current which they knew would float it down to the dam. If
the channel became blocked and logs lodged along the shore, they pushed
them off like the good log-men they were.
It took two or three weeks to cut the winter's supply of wood, which was
not for fuel but food. All the logs had been floated down to the dam and
secured under water near the lodge, when the great freeze came. It was
quite difficult to make the sticks stay under water, but this they
managed to do in several ways. Some of them they thrust into the mud,
while others were secured under roots, and a large pile was made safe at
the dam by thrusting one stick under another and allowing the top sticks
to keep the under ones down.
One clear, crisp night, about the first of December, the North Wind
awoke and came galloping over the frozen fields, bringing with him
legions of frost folks. The fingers of these myriad little people were
like icicles, and everything that they touched was congealed. They found
the beavers' pond, and danced a merry dance over the sparkling water,
and every time that they stooped to touch the clear water, crystals of
ice formed and spread in every direction.
It had been a very pleasant autumn, but the North Wind was angry
to-night, and he howled like a demon, and smote lake and river with his
icy mittens, so that when the sun rose next morning, lakes and streams
were cased in a glittering armor of ice and the beavers were prisoners
for the winter.
For the next four or five months they would live under ice, but they did
not care about that. It was what they had planned and worked for for
weeks. They were snugly housed with plenty of tender bark for their
winter's food, so the wind might howl, and the frost freeze. It would
only strengthen their barricade and make them more secure against the
outer world.
In their thick-walled house it was quite snug. The heat of their bodies
made it warm and the vent at the top carried off the foul air. Whenever
they were tired of confinement, they would go for a swim in the pond
through one of the three sub-marine passages, just as though the pond
had not been frozen over. The only care that they needed to exercise was
to look out that these holes did not ice over and thus lock them in
their lodge like rats in a trap. To prevent this, they broke the ice
frequently with their tails during cold days. Some cold nights they were
obliged to watch the holes for hours to prevent them from freezing.
It was twilight of a bleak December day. The sun had taken his
accustomed plunge behind the western horizon, but still shone blood red
upon the clouds above the gray hills. There was still light enough from
the afterglow to cast shadows, and phantom shapes peopled the aisles of
the forest, or stretched their long arms across the fields.
The moon was just rising in the east, and it made shadows and shapes
uncanny and unearthly. Already the heavens were studded with stars, and
the wind moaned fitfully, rattling down snow and ice and whistling in
the leafless twigs.
Down from the foothills, coming like a wary hunter, a wildcat prowled to
the edge of the beavers' pond. A part of the way he had followed a
rabbit's track, but it had proved so old that he had finally given it
up. When he hurried he moved by quick jumps, bringing down all four feet
at a time quite close together, and leaving those four telltale
paw-prints in a bunch that hunters know so well. When he wanted to be
more cautious, he walked cat-like, setting his fore paw down as softly
as though his foot were velvet. He was an ugly looking brute, rather
heavily built, with a thick head, and square topped club ears that
usually lay back close to his head. His visage was generously sprinkled
with whiskers, but it was accented by two hungry yellow green eyes, that
seemed almost phosphorescent. His habitual expression was a snarl.
At the edge of the beaver pond, he tried the wind this way and that. His
nostrils dilated, his eyes snapped fire, and his stump of a tail
twitched. There was game abroad. He knew that scent of old. It was quite
common away to the north from whence he had wandered. Cautiously he
crept forward, putting down his paws in the dainty cat-like manner; but
he must have known that the beavers were out of his reach at this time
of year. Perhaps his hunger made him forgetful or he may have looked for
the unexpected.
Half-way across the pond he stopped and sniffed again; it was close at
hand now. Then he noticed the conical house on the island near, and
crept cautiously toward it. Twice he walked about the house, which was
now partly covered with snow, then with one jump he landed upon the very
dome of the beavers' dwelling and peeked in at the air hole. What he saw
made saliva drip from his mouth and his eyes dilate. There within three
feet of his death-dealing paws were a pair of sleek beavers, warm and
cozy. The hot scent fairly ravished his nostrils. It was unendurable,
and he tore at the frozen mud house like a fury, first with his fore
paws, then with his powerful hind paws armed with one of the best set of
claws in the New England woods. But it was as hard as a stone wall and
the beavers might just as well have been miles away as far as he was
concerned.
Then the wildcat peeked in again, and ungovernable rage seized him. He
reared upon his haunches, and beat the air with his fore paws and
howled and shrieked like a demon. The beavers started from their
twilight nap with sudden terror. This fury that was tearing at their
house and filling the night with awful sounds seemed almost upon their
very backs, so they fled precipitately through the water passages into
the pond and took refuge in one of the burrows along the bank.
[Illustration: TEARING AT THEIR HOUSE AND FILLING THE NIGHT WITH AWFUL
SOUNDS]
A moment later when the wildcat again peeped in at the vent, the house
was quite empty. Then after a few more futile efforts to break through
the frozen walls he went away, going from bush to bush, alert and
watchful. Only the tracks remained to tell that the beavers had had so
unwelcome a caller.