A BANK BEAVER
When Shaggycoat returned from his second summer's ramble, he brought
home with him a large good natured beaver whom we will call Brownie.
This newcomer to the valley was a third larger than Shaggycoat, and
lighter colored. The long hairs in his glossy coat were light brown,
while his under fur was a drab. His tail was also larger and longer than
that of his host.
Brownie turned out to be what is called a bank beaver. In France all the
beavers are bank beavers; in America they were all house beavers
originally, but they have been so crowded and hunted from their native
haunts by trappers and frontiersmen, that many of them have become bank
beavers; probably because this mode of life is less conspicuous, and
leaves them better protected from the attacks of man, but they are a
more easy prey to their natural enemies, and to starvation in the
winter.
Naturalists have quarreled and disputed as scientists will, as to
whether the bank beaver in America is a separate specie, or merely the
house beaver, who has adopted the methods and manners of the bank
beaver.
I am inclined to the latter view, as birds, animals, and even plants
will modify their mode of life to suit changing conditions.
At first Shaggycoat liked Brownie very much. He was so good natured and
playful that he made a pleasant companion, on the return trip home, but,
when work upon the dam began, and he was invited to put his strong
muscles in play, he demurred. There was no need of building a dam he
thought. Why not be content with a hole in the bank, and then there
would be no need of cutting these great trees, and tugging and hauling
on logs and stones. Small trees furnished just as good bark as large
ones, and were much easier to cut. But Shaggycoat did not like this lazy
manner of living, besides he did not think it safe. When day after day
Brownie refused to help on the dam, he flew into a rage with so lazy a
fellow, and gave Brownie such a severe trouncing that he never dared
show himself about the lake afterward, so he went a mile or so down
stream, and set up housekeeping for himself. But there was not much
house about it, for his home was merely a deserted otter's den, although
he considered it quite adequate.
One naturalist asserts that the bank beaver in America is a forlorn,
sorrowful fellow, who has been disappointed in love, and has to go
through life without a mate; while another avers that he is a drone who
will not labor, and so is driven from the colony.
Brownie certainly was a drone, and perhaps he had left his little mud
love token along the watercourse that autumn, and it had remained
unopened, but certainly his was a lonely life.
He took up his abode about a mile below the dam, and although they
sometimes saw him watching them from a distance, he never dared again
trespass on the premises of these more ambitious beavers.
His burrow was located where the river was deep so that he might be well
protected from the waterside. He could not lay up a large supply of wood
for food as the house beaver did, but he managed to secure considerable
under roots and stones along the shore. Some of this the current carried
down stream, and his stock ran short before spring.
Perhaps he thought of his snugly housed cousins on cold winter days and
nights, as he nestled alone in his comfortless burrow. In the beaver
houses, the warmth of several bodies, and the breath from many nostrils,
kept the temperature quite comfortable, but lonely Brownie had to be his
own bedfellow, and what warmth there was came from his own body, and
warming one's self with one's own heat is rather a forlorn task.
Also when his supply of bark ran low, and he had to gnaw upon tree roots
to keep the breath of life in his body, he remembered the house beaver's
generous supply of wood.
If the winter was not too severe, the stream might be open for a while
at the rapids near by, when he could replenish his store, but,
floundering about in the deep snow in midwinter, leaving telltale tracks
at every step, and an unmistakable beaver scent, was hazardous business.
There were many creatures in the wilderness who were fiercer and
stronger than the harmless beaver, and they all loved beaver meat.
As we have already seen, the bear would prowl about in beaver land, just
before denning up, for a last smack of blood. The wildcat and the lynx
were about as fond of beaver as of fish and they could watch for both at
the same time, which made it doubly interesting. The sneaking wolverine
also considered the beaver his particular titbit.
For all of these reasons Brownie would go hungry for several meals
before he would venture outside to replenish his store of bark.
One evening late in November, he was leaving his burrow to go ashore and
do some wood cutting when just at the entrance a premonition of danger
came upon him. That peculiar sense of danger that many animals have told
him that something was wrong. I have known several cases where dogs had
premonitions of coming disaster in the family, and it was probably this
instinctive power that told Brownie that something was waiting for him
at the mouth of his burrow, so he just poked the tip of his nose out, to
see what it was that made him so uncomfortable.
Quick as a flash a mighty paw armed with a raking set of claws, struck
him a stunning blow in the nose. He had just sense enough left to
wriggle back a few feet into the burrow, and keep quiet.
Although his nose was bleeding profusely and he had been severely
stunned, in a few seconds he recovered, for without doctors, or
medicine, the wild creatures have a way of recovering rapidly from any
hurt.
From the strong bear scent that penetrated his burrow, Brownie knew that
his enemy was a bear, even before Bruin reached his strong arm in and
tried to poke him out. But he had no mind to be poked, so he wriggled
out of reach and was glad that he had escaped so easily. The bear hung
about the spot for a day or two, often watching cat-like at the hole.
Sometimes he would go back into the woods, hoping to entrap the beaver
into coming out, but Brownie had no desire to become further acquainted
with the ugly fellow and so stayed in, although this two days'
imprisonment hindered his wood cutting.
The next watcher at his front door was the mean, sneaking wolverine, who
kept him a prisoner for two or three days more. This enemy was even more
to be dreaded than the bear, for he would have dug the beaver out if the
mouth of his burrow had not been so far under water. He did start to dig
him out from the bank above, running a shaft down to strike the beaver
den. He would have found the burrow without a doubt, but a hard freeze
put a stop to his digging so he left the bank beaver and went up to the
dam to try his luck with the house beavers.
All these things made Brownie's supply of wood much smaller than it
should have been. But the trouble was not there. He should have been
more provident, and worked earlier in the autumn when he had a chance.
Finally the ice door was shut down over lake and stream, and there was
no more going out for the beaver family.
Now Brownie was unwise again, for he did not guard his store carefully,
but ate greedily without a thought of how long the winter before him
might be.
By the time the great January thaw came he had entirely exhausted his
supply of bark and had gnawed all the tree roots that he could reach
under the ice.
He would have famished in a few days more had not the great thaw opened
an airhole in the ice, through which he escaped into the adjacent woods.
He knew that this was hazardous, but hunger impelled him and hunger is
a mighty argument. For about a week all went well and he was
congratulating himself upon his good fortune, and had about concluded
that he had been too cautious, when the unexpected happened. This night
he went forth as usual to cut sapling for his supper but did not return.
Just what happened I shall not tell, but we will follow his tracks in
the snow and see if we can guess.
For three or four rods we can see where he floundered along to a clump
of bushes, and here there are four ragged stumps and near by three small
poplars lying in the snow. Then here are the marks of brush being
dragged along on the snow to the burrow. Then there is a second beaver
track leading back to the fallen poplars, and here is another track
coming from down-stream and following beside the beaver track. This
track shows four large paw prints in a bunch and the creature did not
trot but hopped like a rabbit.
Now he has stopped, for the paw prints are spread out as though he stood
watching and listening. See where the fur on his belly brushed the snow
as he crept forward. Now he is crouching low, the belly mark on the snow
is plainer. What a break in the track is this. Three great jumps, each
measuring ten feet, and here are other tracks of the same kind coming
from two directions.
See how the snow is tramped and blurred. Ah, there is where the hunter
and hunted met, and the pale winter moon and the gleaming stars know
what happened.
[Illustration: THERE IS WHERE THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTED MET]
There are still a few small drops of blood, and eager tongues have
licked up many more, for the snow is blotted and streaked with these
tongue marks. Here and there are brown hairs that tell their pathetic
story to the woodsman who can see it all in the tracks as well as
though it had happened before his own eyes.
The unfortunate wood-cutter had fallen a victim to one of those
ferocious lynx bands, that range the woods in extreme winters when
hunger drives them to hunt in company. It had been cleverly done as
things are, in the woods. One of the company had come up the stream and
cut off the beaver's chance of escape to his burrow. He had then
followed on the fresh track to the poplars where the band had closed in
on their unfortunate prey.
Only the uncanny night knows how pitiful was the cry from the terrified
and agonized beaver as these three furies hurled themselves upon him and
in fewer seconds than it takes to tell it, tore him to shreds.