A TALK ABOUT BEAVER
"Well, now, Hugh," asked Jack, "what can you tell me about beaver
trapping?"
"Why, son," said Hugh, "I can tell you whole lot about beaver trapping.
There is a great big book to be written yet about beaver and how to
trap them, and when that book is written there will be enough left out
of it to make another book."
"I've always heard," said Jack, "that beaver was about the smartest
animal there was, and the one most difficult to trap, but, of course, I
don't know anything about it. I have seen a few dams and the tops of a
few houses up north, but you can't learn much about beaver by looking
at his work."
"No," said Hugh, "not much, and before you can learn anything about
trapping beaver, you've got to know something about the nature of the
beast."
"Well, that's the very thing I want you to tell me about," replied
Jack. "I want to find out all that I can about the beaver, before I see
any. In the first place, suppose you tell me how big they are."
"Well," said Hugh, "they are the biggest gnawing animal we have in this
country. A full grown beaver will weigh from forty to sixty pounds;
perhaps big ones will average as heavy as a half sack of flour."
"My," said Jack, "that's bigger than I supposed they were. I have
always heard of the beaver as a little animal. It seems to me that it's
a big one."
"Yes," said Hugh, "it's quite a sizable animal, and if you've got a
half dozen to pack to your camp on your back you'll think they are
pretty good sized animals before you get them all in."
"Well, where do they live?" said Jack.
"I reckon," replied Hugh, "that they live all over this country of
North America, from Texas north as far as there are any trees. You
know that the food of the beaver is the bark of certain trees, and, of
course, they can't live anywhere except where these trees grow, but I
have heard of them 'way down in Texas, and I know that the Northern
Indians away up toward the limit of trees trap beaver a plenty, so that
I expect they are found over the whole country. I have heard your uncle
say that there were some beaver in Europe, but over there I reckon they
have been about cleaned out. Too many people killing 'em, I reckon."
"Well," said Jack, "I guess they are found all over North America,
north of the United States, anyhow; because I know that the coat of
arms of Canada has the beaver on it."
"Yes, I reckon the beaver was the reason that Canada was settled, and
in fact the beaver was what led men into all this western country. In
the early days, soon after Lewis and Clark went across the continent,
the fur traders began to push their way into this western country,
north and south, and beaver was what they were after. You see in those
days it was a mighty valuable fur, worth a good deal more than it's
ever been since.
"Just as soon as the white men came into the country and found the
Indians wearing robes made of beaver, and clothing trimmed with beaver
and other fur, they began to trade for the robes, and to tell the
Indians that if they'd bring them in beaver skins they'd give them
knives and needles and beads, and later, rum, and, of course, that set
the Indians to killing beaver as fast as they could.
"But, as I say, it wasn't until after Lewis and Clark got across
the continent that trapping began down in the United States. Along
in the 30's, though, white men began to get up fur companies and to
hire the best trappers that they could get, and they pushed out in all
directions, up the Arkansas, up the Platte, and up the Missouri River,
setting their traps in every valley and cleaning out the beaver as
fast as they could. Then they got into the mountains, and there they
found more beaver and better fur, and there, too, is where they began
to run across Indians to bother them. The Blackfeet were the worst.
They used to steal our horses and take our traps, and now and then a
scalp, when they could, and they made us a great deal of trouble. The
prices for fur were good until in the 40's, just before I got out into
the country. Then they fell, and for the next twelve or fifteen years
every old trapper that you met was growling about the fact that beaver
weren't worth anything any more.
"Your uncle tells me that there has been a whole lot of books written
about those early trapping days, but I have never seen any of them. Of
course, then it was all wild country and lots of things were happening,
and a man had to keep his eyes open pretty wide. As I have told you,
the Indian wars did not begin until long after that, and most of the
trouble that we had with the Indians was with parties of wild young
men, who had started off to war, and were anxious to get glory, and to
go back to their villages and brag about what they had done. The fights
were with these little parties and not with the tribes. But, at the
same time, a bullet or an arrow from one of these little parties would
kill a man just as dead as if he had been fighting with a tribe."
"That's all mighty interesting, Hugh," said Jack. "It seems to me that
you never get through telling me interesting things about this country
in the old times. I wish that I knew how to write, so that I could put
it all down, and some day write a big book about your adventures."
"Well," said Hugh, "I'm mighty glad you can't do that. I reckon if I
were to see you taking all these notes down in a notebook I wouldn't
talk so much as I do."
"Well," said Jack, "if I knew how to write, you bet I'd write such a
book. I sort of wonder that Uncle George has never done that. He spends
a great deal of his time writing in winter, when he is back in New
York."
"Well," Hugh went on, "let's go ahead about the beaver. You know
that they build dams across streams to hold back the water, and that
they build houses in the ponds that they make. Have you ever looked
carefully at these dams?"
"No, I don't believe I have," Jack replied; "people have pointed them
out to me, and they've shown me places along the streams where trees
and brush had been cut down, and have said to me, 'that's beaver work,'
and I have seen piles of sticks in the water and have been told that
those were houses, but I never had any idea how any of this work was
done."
"They build their dams across streams," said Hugh, "and hold back the
water and often spread it over quite a wide space of the valley, and
in this water they build their houses. I have always supposed that the
ponds were made as a protection for the animals. You see, they are big
and slow. They can't run away from anything that wants to kill them,
and so the only means they have of getting away from their enemies is
to dive down into the water and swim under it. Then their enemies,
whether they are humans or animals, can't follow them. Of course, I
have no more idea than you how the beaver got the idea of protecting
themselves in this way, but I believe it is for protection they make
these ponds, and for nothing else. You'll see that their houses are
built out in pretty deep water, and when they are scared from shore
they go out and get into their houses, and if somebody tries to pull
down the houses where they live, then they can swim to the shore and
hide there, with their noses just above water."
"Well," said Jack, "that's news to me. I always accepted the fact that
they built dams to hold the water back, but I never had any idea why
they did it."
"No," said Hugh, "I reckon not. I never heard anybody that did know
why, but I am just giving you my idea. You'll hear a whole lot of
stories about the wonderful things that beaver do, and in many of these
stories there is not a grain of truth, but they do wonderful things
enough as it is. You don't have to lie about them to make them out
mighty smart animals."
"Yes," replied Jack, "I have heard of some of these wonderful things. I
think some of the books say that the beaver can cut down a tree so that
it will fall exactly where they want it to lie, just as a lumber-man in
the woods will fell a tree where he wants it to lie. They say that when
the beaver want to build a new dam they look along the stream until
they find a place where there is a tree of just the right length, and
then they fell it across the stream for a foundation for their dam."
"Yes," said Hugh, "I have heard that story, too, but I don't believe
it. Beaver will cut down trees, and mighty big ones, too, but I don't
believe that they can cut down a tree so that it will fall in a
particular direction, and if it does fall in a direction to be useful
to them, that's just nothing but accident. What they cut trees down for
is for the food that they know is growing on the tree. They want to
get at the tender bark of the branches for their food, and that's what
they cut the trees for. All the same, it's mighty wonderful sometimes
to see what big trees they will cut down, and how smart they are about
cutting them. They will gnaw a deep gouge below and then gnaw another
cut eight or ten inches above, and pull the chip out; a chip just about
as big as an axman would cut out with an ax. They are smart about that,
but they haven't any idea which way the tree is going to fall."
"Well," said Jack, "that seems natural enough, and besides that, I
should think that even if beaver did know how to fell the tree to lie
in a particular direction, they could not always do it with these
crooked old cottonwood trees that grow along the streams."
"Yes," said Hugh, "some of them are so crooked and grow so slantwise
that no axman could fell them the way he wanted."
"I have seen it stated in books, too," Jack went on, "that they always
fell a tree just long enough to reach across the stream, and no longer.
I never could see how that could be, because it would be impossible for
beaver to measure the height of a tree."
"Oh," said Hugh, "that's all nonsense; they don't do anything like
that. There is one thing which they do, though, that people don't give
them credit for, or at least I have never heard anybody speak about it;
they'll build a dam across a creek and raise the water, and make a big
wide pond. Maybe the water flows over the top of the dam pretty freely
for its whole length. Such a pond will be lived in for a good many
years. During all those years the rain and the melting snow, and all
the water that falls, carries down from the hills soil and dead leaves
and sticks and a whole lot of trash, and after a time the pond fills
up and gets too shallow for the beaver to use it. Then maybe they'll
raise the dam for its whole length, and make the pond bigger, and then
after years of time this larger pond will partly fill up and grow
shallow. After a time the beaver will, perhaps, leave the pond, and go
somewhere else to build another. Then, after a few years the dam will
rot out and break down, the pond will go dry, the water will get back
to its old channel, and grass and willows and other brush will grow
up over the old bottom of the pond, and there you've got a big wide
flat--what we call a beaver meadow. All along streams all over this
western country there are big strips of flat land that have been made
just in this way by the beaver."
"I have never thought of that before, Hugh, and I never heard anybody
speak of it. The time may come when people will farm on these big
flats, never knowing how they were made."
"Yes, that's a fact," said Hugh, "and already there are lots of places
down toward the prairie where folks have started ranches on land of
just that sort.
"Let me tell you another thing that beaver are smart about. Sometimes
they will make a pond in a particular valley, quite a distance from
any place where their food grows. Often there are no willows, and the
quaking aspen grows only along the foothills, maybe quite a little
distance from the edge of their pond. Sometimes they will dig out a
ditch or canal all the way from the edge of the pond up close to where
the aspen grows. Of course, the water from the pond fills up these
ditches, and the beaver will follow them up close to the aspens, cut
down their feed there, and cutting the trees and brush into convenient
lengths, carry them to the ditches, dump them in and then take and swim
with them back to their houses, or the places where they store their
food. This always seemed to me pretty smart, because, while it must
be a lot of work for them to dig the ditch, it's a tremendous saving
of labor for them to be able to float these sticks to where they want
them."
"That seems to me mighty intelligent, Hugh, and I should think, too,
that they might have another motive in digging these ditches. If they
had to travel two or three hundred yards on dry land, wouldn't there be
a good deal of danger of their getting caught away out from the water
and killed?"
"Lots of danger," said Hugh, "and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if they
made these ditches more for their safety than to save themselves work.
They are mighty industrious animals, the beaver. You know, if we see a
man that is hard at work all the time, we say he works like a beaver.
They are busy animals, and they keep at it all the time."
"What animals are there, Hugh, that kill the beaver? I suppose man is
the worst enemy it's got, but there must be a lot of others, such as
wolves and, perhaps, bears."
"Yes," said Hugh, "a beaver has lots of enemies. As I have said to you,
it's heavy and slow; it can't run away nor climb a tree, and it has no
special means of defending itself. A beaver's got a good set of teeth,
but while he can give one or two pretty strong bites, that would not
help him much in a scrap with any animal near his own size.
"A bear, of course, would kill a beaver every time if he could get hold
of him; so would a big wolf. A single coyote might not be able to, but
two or three coyotes could get away with him in short order.
"Didn't you ever, back East, see a dog get between a woodchuck and his
hole? You know the woodchuck will sit up and chatter his teeth, and
perhaps he will bite the dog once when the dog runs in, but that's the
end of the woodchuck. The beaver has got longer teeth, and can bite a
little harder and deeper, but he is not built for fighting, and what's
more, he never means to fight if he can help it.
"The wolverine sometimes lies around beaver ponds and maybe once in
a while catches one, but wolverines are pretty scarce, and I don't
think they get many. I believe that the animal that gets more beaver
than any other is the lynx. They are small, to be sure, but they are
mighty quick, and they have got those long claws, and they can jump on
a beaver and cut him up pretty badly before he can get hold of them.
I have often seen places where beaver had been killed, and I know it
was done by lynxes; that is, by bob-cats, and also by the big gray
lynxes. One time, a good many years ago, I saw a lynx waiting to catch
a beaver. As it happened, he didn't get him, but he tried hard enough.
"I happened to be riding down William's Fork, and had to pass through
a point of timber, and just before I got out to the pond, on the other
side, I stopped my horse for a minute to look around and see what I
could see. There was a big beaver dam just below me, on the river, and
I knew of it, for I had often passed there. I could see nothing, and
was just going to start on again, when, as I happened to look over
across the creek just opposite me, I saw something move. For a minute I
could not tell what it was, and then I saw lying among the sage brush
a big bob-cat, whose color matched the ground and the weeds about him
so well that it was hard for me to make out his shape. At one end of
him, however, there was something black that kept moving regularly
in little jerks, and, of course, I knew that this was his tail, and
that he was watching something in the stream and getting ready to jump
on it. I looked at the stream carefully, and for a moment could not
see anything, and then, just below the bob-cat, I made out something
swimming in the water, close under the bank, but to save my life I
could not tell whether it was a duck, or a muskrat, or what. When this
thing, whatever it was, had got nearly to the bob-cat, which kept
crouching flatter and flatter all the time, the thing suddenly dived
and hit the water a tremendous rap with its tail, and then, of course,
I knew that it was a beaver that had been swimming up stream, and that
the bob-cat had seen it, and was waiting for it to get within reach,
and then was going to jump on it. Of course, bob-cats don't like the
water very well, but all the same, they will go into it for food."
"What did the bob-cat do when the beaver dived, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Oh, after a minute or two," said Hugh, "he seemed to realize that the
game was up, and he then got up and walked away into the sage brush.
I have often wished that the beaver had come on a little further so
that I could have seen the end of the thing, and seen whether beaver
or bob-cat would have come out ahead. You see, the beaver must have
been swimming in pretty deep water, and, of course, if he had had sense
enough to grab the bob-cat and hold on to him, no doubt he could have
drowned him, but I don't reckon the beaver would have had sense enough
for that; he would have just tried to get away, and I guess he would
have succeeded."
"Well, Hugh," said Jack, "it is interesting to hear of these animals,
but as you say, it's pretty hard work to really learn anything about
them by reading or hearing people talk. The real way is to see the
animals themselves, and I hope we will do that before very long."
"Yes, son, we ought to. In fact, by to-morrow afternoon we ought to get
to where there used to be a great big beaver meadow. I don't know, of
course, whether we will find any beaver there now or not, but it's a
good place to go and look for them. I have seen the time when it was
full of beaver, and if we could find it as full now as it was then, we
ought to be able to load up a pack horse with fur."
"My!" said Jack; "don't I wish we could. That would be fine."
"Put some more wood on the fire, son," said Hugh, "and I'll smoke my
pipe, and then we'll go to bed."
Jack rose from his comfortable seat, and going over to where some
cottonwood branches had been dragged together, brought two or three
good-sized logs, and raking the fire together, threw them on. The dry
wood blazed up with a cheerful flame that almost reached the branches
of the pine tree beneath which their tent was pitched, and Hugh, after
filling his pipe and lighting it by means of a twig thrust into the
fire, sat back and declared that this was solid comfort.
"It's a bully good camping place, isn't it?" said Jack.
"First class," was the reply, "and we are going to have good weather
and good country to camp and travel in all summer, except when we have
thunderstorms. Of course, we have got to expect that, for there is lots
of thunder and lightning in these mountains. We will get wet once in a
while, but that's no great harm."
"No, indeed," said Jack, "getting wet is a part of the play."
"Tell me, Hugh," he added after a pause, "what other fur may we expect
to see here?"
"Why, son," said Hugh, "there is mighty little that will be good now,
except bears. As I told you at the ranch, any bears that we can kill
before the first of July will be good prime skins, but right after that
they begin to get sunburned and rusty, and begin to shed off, and then,
the first thing we know, they are not worth skinning for about three
months. Along in October they begin to get a pretty good coat again,
though it is not so very long."
"Well," persisted Jack, "there is fur in the mountains here, I suppose."
"Lord, yes," said Hugh. "There are a few otter, lots of mink, and a few
marten high up in the hills; once in a while a wolverine, and once in
a while a fisher; but none of this fur, except the otter, will be good
in summer, and otters are so scarce that they are not worth bothering
with."
"I should not have supposed there would be any otter here, because the
streams are so small."
"There are not very many," said Hugh, "but yet more than you think. You
see there are worlds of fish in many of these mountain streams, and
where there are fish you are pretty sure to find otter. In some of the
lakes high up in the mountains I have seen lots of otters, but as I
say, there aren't enough to try to trap."
"What is the fisher, Hugh?" asked Jack. "I have heard of that animal,
but I don't very well know what it is. Is that the same creature that
the books speak of as the black cat?"
"I reckon it is," replied Hugh. "I have heard some trappers call them
by that name. Really, it always seemed to me like a big marten, and
why people called it fisher, I don't know. I never saw one near water,
and I don't believe they catch fish. They are great things to climb
round in the trees, and they are quicker in them than any squirrel you
ever saw. I have seen them chasing martens and I believe that they eat
them. I know they eat porcupines, for though I never saw one kill a
porcupine, I have seen them with porcupine quills in their faces and in
their forelegs, but bless you, the quills didn't seem to bother them a
mite. You take a dog or a cat that had as many quills in it as I have
seen in some fishers, and it would be all swelled up and not able to
see out of its eyes, nor to walk; but I have seen fishers stuck full of
quills and I never saw one swelled up or apparently hurt at all. They
don't seem to get inflamed by the quills the way a dog or a cat does."
"I suppose, Hugh, there is no great chance of our being able to shoot
any of these animals while we are hunting?"
"No," replied Hugh, "I don't think there is. Of course, you never can
tell what you might run across when you are going through the timber or
up over the rocks on the mountains, but as a rule these animals will
see, or hear, or smell you before you know they are around, and they'll
just slip out of sight, and either get away as fast as they can, or
else watch you to see what you are going to do. I remember that the
only wolverine I have killed in a good many years was one that I saw
traveling along over the rocks when I was up above timber-line one time
waiting to try to kill a sheep. He just walked up within easy shot,
and, of course, I killed him. A mighty pretty looking animal he was,
too, with his smooth coat all shining in the sun and blowing in the
breeze.
"But, look here, son, if you and I are going to get off in any sort of
season to-morrow morning we'd better turn in now. Suppose you go down
to the creek and get a bucket of water, and I'll go out and look around
through the horses, and then we'll make down our beds."
"All right," said Jack, and he did as requested, and a little later the
camp was peacefully sleeping, as the fire died down.