KING OF BEAVERS
"Joe," said Wahawa to the trapper one evening, as they sat by the fire,
munching corn bread and bacon, "I believe you have caught the sacred
beaver of my people, the good Puigagis, King of all the Beavers."
Joe laughed. "Py gar, what foolishness you tink in your hade now. You is
one foolish leetle gal, he your sacred beaver, you say?"
But Wahawa did not laugh. She looked very serious as she replied, "It is
nothing to laugh at, Joe. If this is really the sacred beaver, no good
will come of it. Did you notice he had lost one forepaw? My people
always let a maimed beaver go when they trap him because of something
that happened many moons ago. Listen, Joe, and I will tell."
The man of many traps looked interested for he, too, was touched with
superstition, and fearful of anything that might affect his good luck as
a trapper.
"As many moons ago as the old pine back of the shack has needles on its
boughs," began Wahawa, "the Great Spirit became angry with my people.
The squaws said it was because the warriors went on the war-path instead
of killing and preparing meat for the winter months, and the braves said
it was because the squaws were lazy and did not raise corn. But for one
reason or another the Manito was angry so he covered the face of the sun
with his right hand, and it was like a sick man's smile, and he covered
the moon and the stars by night with his blanket and they were no longer
bright, but like a camp-fire that has gone out.
"The corn did not grow in the summer-time, and the snow and the wind
were furious in the winter.
"Such cold as this was never known in the land before and never since.
The ice froze so deeply on lake and river that it could not be broken
and no fish could be taken. The deer all yarded in the deep forest and
did not stir abroad so the hunters could not find them, and many
perished before spring. Still deeper and deeper fell the snow and colder
and colder grew the breath of the wind, and the kiss of the frost was
like death.
"The warm skins of bear and beaver were no longer warm and the camp-fire
had lost its heat.
"Finally, the warriors were obliged to kill their ponies, and the
wolves, running in great packs, came down to help with the feast. At
night they would stand about the camp, just on the border of the
firelight, watching and waiting. They seemed to know that powder and
ball were low in the pouch of the warrior, and that he no longer had
strength to draw the bow. They knew that the camp-fires would soon go
out, and the warriors and the squaws fall asleep at their post. So the
great gray wolfs watched and waited for they knew that the hour of
feasting was near at hand.
"Then my grandmother, who was the daughter of the chief, and whose
withered lips told me the story, had a dream.
"She dreamed that Puigagis, the King of the Beavers, came into her lodge
and spoke to her in the tongue of her people.
"'O Singing Bird, daughter of the great chief,' he said, and his voice
was sweet to hear. 'The great spirit was angry because his warriors did
not hunt, and the women were lazy, but he has seen the suffering of thy
people, and the great wolf, Famine, looking in at your lodges. This
melted his anger and he has sent me to save your people. Tell your
father, the chief, to send his warriors in the morning to a valley, one
day's march to the northward, and they shall find a colony of beavers as
large as an Indian village. Many lodges they shall see, and all will
contain beaver meat, and warm furs to protect them and their women
against the wind and frost. I, Puigagis, the King of all the Beavers,
will go before them to show the way. My own life and all the lives of my
kind I will give to save the lives of the redmen and their daughters.'
"Then the wind lifted Puigagis, King of the Beavers, in its strong arms
and bore him away over the tree-tops.
"The daughter of the chief awoke and saw that the camp-fire was very
low, and that the wind was shaking the tepee as though to tear it down.
When she put new faggots on the fire and it blazed up, she saw there
were beaver tracks on the snow and her dream had been true. She awoke
her father, the chief, who called his warriors and they examined the
tracks in the snow and saw that they were the tracks of a beaver; a
beaver of great size, who had lost one forepaw in a trap.
"The chief then bade his warriors make ready for in the morning they
would go to the lake of which the King of the Beavers had spoken.
"In the morning the sun was brighter than it had been for weeks, and
they started out with more hope than they had felt for many moons. They
went due north as Puigagis, the King of the Beavers, had directed, and,
whenever they were uncertain of the way, they would examine the snow and
always at just the right moment would find the tracks of the
three-footed beaver.
"Although he went on the wings of the wind, he touched the snow every
mile or two that they might not go astray and miss the Beaver Lake.
"Late in the afternoon, when they were weary and very cold with the long
march, they came to a beautiful valley, and there before them, covered
with snow, stretched the broad bosom of the lake.
"Here and there showing their domes above the ice were beaver lodges,
many more than the oldest hunters had ever seen. On the top of the
largest lodge of all sat Puigagis, King of all the Beavers, and the
warriors saw that his right forepaw had been taken off by a trap. A
moment he sat there as though in welcome, then disappeared as if the
lodge had opened and swallowed him.
"Then the warriors built great fires upon the ice, made a hole in the
beaver dam with their hatchets and strong stakes which they cut in the
woods, and destroyed the entire colony, with the exception of the great
lodge of Puigagis, King of all the Beavers. This they would not touch,
lest evil befall them; nor will they take the skin of a maimed beaver to
this day.
"They loaded their packs with meat and skins until they bent beneath
them. The wind and weather befriended them on their homeward journey.
The beaver meat and the new skins kept life in the Indian village until
the great Spirit lifted his hand from the face of the sun, till flowers
and birds returned and the children of the woods were again glad.
"But the three-footed beaver they will not trap or harm to this day and
it is an ill omen to hold one captive."
"Dat ees vun fine story," commented Joe, as the narrator finished.
"Maybe he true, maybe he not. I do not know me. But he ver good," and
Joe blew rings of blue smoke and watched them meditatively.
"Did you ever hear how the beaver got his flat tail?" asked Wahawa.
"By gar, no, I tink he always have he. Tell one more pretty story,
leetle gal."
"Well, this was the way," replied the Indian girl.
"Many, many moons ago, so long ago that it is only known by pictures
that my people cut in stone, there was a King Beaver, wiser and larger
than all his fellows. In those days, the beaver had a round bushy tail
like the raccoon, but he saw one day when he was building a house that
it would be very handy to have a flat tail. He pondered long on how to
get it. Finally a plan came to him and he called the four strongest
beavers in the land and told them to bring a large flat stone.
"When they had brought the stone, the King Beaver placed his tail upon
another flat stone and made the four strong beavers drop the stone they
had brought upon his tail. It hurt him very much but he shut his teeth
tight and thought how nice it would be to have a flat tail. When they
lifted the stone off his tail, it was not as flat as he wished, so they
tried again, but still it did not suit him, but he thought they had
flattened it enough for that day.
"Every day for a week he had the four strong beavers drop the stone on
his tail until at last it was flat enough. After that he used it so much
in handling mud that the hair soon wore off, and it looked just as the
beaver tail does now. The descendants of this beaver all had flat tails,
and they were so much stronger and better workmen that they survived all
the other kinds and the round-tailed beavers soon became extinct.
"There is another Indian legend about how the beaver learned to build
houses. Once an Indian caught a beaver in a pitfall and took him home to
his wigwam where he kept him all winter. The beaver saw how warm and
nice the Indian house was and the following fall when he escaped he
built himself a mud house as near like the Indian's as he could, and he
was the first beaver to live in a lodge."
"Ver good stories," commented Joe. "Ver good. Maybe they true, maybe
they not, but I tink He make um beaver tail flat, because He know the
beaver want a flat tail. And for He," Joe pointed with his thumb to the
roof of the shack, "He give de eagle hees strong wing because he live in
the cloud, an' de fish fins, because he want to swim. He made de deer
with springs in his laigs because he got no teeth to bite his enemy, nor
claws. He made de fox cunning becase he not strong, so he run mighty
fast like de wind. De wildcat an' de bar, He also give claws an' strong
arms, so they all lib an' not starb.
"De flower it smile, an' de tree talk an' de wind an' de water they
better company than much folks. Dar no lie in de woods. Dar all tings
good. He make all tings ver good, by gar. Me like um wind an' water.
They all make me glad."
One day when Shaggycoat had been in captivity about a week, Wahawa came
down to his burrow and coaxed and dragged him out. He was not so much
afraid of her as he had been and he loved the sound of her voice, for it
was like the water slipping between stones. But when she had brought him
forth, Wahawa did something that both astonished and frightened the
beaver, for, quick as a flash, she threw a camp blanket over his head,
and before he had time to bite, she had gathered up the four corners and
Shaggycoat was a prisoner in an improvised bag.
Although he bit and clawed at the blanket, it was so soft and yielding
that he could make no impression on it, so he finally lay still and let
the Indian girl do with him what she would. She talked to him all the
time in that low rippling voice which somewhat allayed his fear.
She slowly ascended the ladder leading to the room above with the heavy
load upon her back and then rested him for a moment on the floor.
What new peril awaited him, Shaggycoat did not know. Maybe his coat was
to be taken off now, and he would be just like the poor beaver he had
seen the first night of his captivity. But Wahawa soon lifted him to her
strong back again and bore him away, he knew not where. When she had
carried him about a quarter of a mile over rough country, she laid down
her burden, and, to the great astonishment of the beaver, dropped the
four corners of the blanket and the beautiful world that Shaggycoat had
known before his captivity, the world with a sky and fresh green trees
and bushes with grass and sweet smelling air, was before him. But better
than all that a swift stream was flowing almost at his very feet. The
music of its rippling made him wild with joy.
Here was freedom almost within reach. But his captor was standing by and
the buckskin collar was still about his neck and he imagined it held him
in some mysterious manner. He looked up at the Indian girl with large
pleading eyes, and she understood his misgivings, so she drew the
hunting knife from her belt and severed the buckskin collar. It had cut
into his neck for so long that the beaver did not realize it was gone
until he saw it lying on the ground, then his heart gave a great bound.
Was freedom to be his after all? His nostrils dilated as he looked
furtively about. There was his captive standing by him and her eyes were
full of kindness. There was the water calling to him, calling as it had
never called before, but he did not quite know what it all meant. Then
the Indian girl spoke and he understood.
"Go, Puigagis, King of the Beavers," she said. "Go and be happy after
thy kind. We have held thee captive too long. Go at once, lest evil
befall us."
With a sudden jump, a scramble and a great splash, Shaggycoat clove the
water of the deep pool at their feet. The ripples widened and widened
and a few bubbles rose to the surface as the dark form sank from sight
and Puigagis disappeared as suddenly from the life of the Indian girl as
though the earth had opened and swallowed him.
Once she thought she saw a dark form gliding stealthily along under the
shadow of the further bank, but was not sure. Although she watched and
listened for a long time, she saw or heard nothing of him. Puigagis,
King of the Beavers, had gone to his kind. The lakes and the streams had
reclaimed their wilderness child, and the Indian girl was glad.