"I need not describe the joy of my wife and the rest when I returned,
and related to them what I had seen, as well as my adventure with the
wolverene. The discovery that our new-made lake was nothing else than a
great beaver-dam at once decided the question as to our remaining in the
valley. Here was a source of wealth to us far greater than would have
been any situation in the mines of Mexico--in fact, better than a mine
itself. The skin of every beaver in that dam I knew to be worth a
guinea and a half. I saw there were at least an hundred of them--there
might be many more--and how soon would these multiply into thousands,
producing annually four or five young to every pair of them. We could
tend them--taking care to provide them with food--and destroy the
wolverenes and any other of their enemies, that might exist in the
valley. They would thus increase the faster, and we could easily
prevent them from becoming too numerous by trapping the older ones, and
carefully preserving their skins. After several years thus employed, we
could return to civilised life, carrying with us enough of their
valuable fur to sell for a smart fortune.
"The prospect of staying where we were was now delightful--the more so,
as I was satisfied it was the best thing I could do. Even had I been
able to procure a pair of fresh oxen at that moment, I should not have
moved a step farther. What Mary had said in jest was now likely to be
realised in earnest, _We might yet make our fortune in the Desert_!
"Of course, it was a settled point--we resolved to remain.
"The first thing to be done, then, was to provide ourselves with a
house. It would be a `log-cabin,' of course; and putting up a log-cabin
was a mere bagatelle to Cudjo. During our residence in Virginia, he had
built two or three on my farm; and no man knew better than he how to do
the thing. No man knew better than he how to shape the logs, notch
them, and lay them firmly in their beds--no man knew better how to split
the `clap-boards,' lay them on the rafters, and bind them fast, without
even a single nail--no man knew how to `chink' the walls, clay the
chimney, and hang the door of a log-cabin better than Cudjo. No. I
will answer for that--Cudjo could construct a log-cabin as well as the
most renowned architect in the world.
"There was plenty of the right kind of timber at hand--plenty of
tulip-trees with their tall straight trunks rising to the height of
fifty feet without a branch; and for the next two days the axe of Cudjo
could be heard with its constant `check--check,' while every now and
then the crash of a falling tree woke the echoes of the valley. While
Cudjo was felling the timber and cutting it into logs of a proper
length, none of the rest of us were idle. In cooking our meals,
scouring the vessels, and looking after the children, Mary found
sufficient employment; while Frank, Harry, and I, with the help of our
horse Pompo, were able to drag the logs forward to the spot where we had
designed to put up the cabin.
"On the third day, Cudjo notched the logs, and on the fourth we raised
the walls up to the square. On the fifth, we set up the gables and
rafters, which, you know, is done by shortening the gable-logs
successively, as you go upward, and tying each pair of them by a pair of
rafters notched into them, at the ends, precisely as the wall-logs
below. A ridge-pole completed the frame, and that was laid by the
evening of the fifth day.
"Upon the sixth day, Cudjo went to work upon a large oak which he had
felled and cut into lengths of about four feet each, at the beginning of
our operations. It was now somewhat dry, so as to split easily; and
with his axe and a set of wedges he attacked it. By sunset, he had a
pile of clap-boards beside him as large as a wagon--quite enough to
`shingle' the roof of our house. During that day, I employed myself in
tempering the clay for chinking the walls and plastering the chimney.
"On the seventh day, we all rested from our labour. We did so because
it was Sunday. We had resolved ever to keep the Sabbath. Though the
eyes of men could not see us--which I fear is too often the reason for
observing the sacred day--we knew that the eye of God was upon us, even
in that remote valley.
"We rose as early as usual, and after eating our breakfast, the Bible
was brought forth, and we offered--the only sacrifice to Him
acceptable--the sacrifice of our humble prayers. Mary had been busy
during the week, and our little ones were dressed out, as if for a
holiday. Taking them along with us, we all walked down to the lake and
some distance around its edge. We saw that the beavers had been as busy
in building as we; and already their cone-shaped dwellings appeared
above the water--some of them near the shore, and others upon the little
islets. There was only one which we could reach, and this we examined
with great curiosity. It stood only a few yards from the shore, but at
a place where the water was deep on its front side. It was nearly
cone-shaped, or rather the form of a bee-hive; and was constructed out
of stones, sticks and mud mixed with grass. Part of it was under water,
but although we could not look into the interior, we knew that there was
an upper story above water-mark--for we saw the ends of the joists that
supported the second floor. The entrance was toward the centre of the
lake and under the water--so that in going out of and into his house,
the beaver is always under the necessity of making a dive. But he does
not mind that, as it seems to be rather a pleasure to him than an
inconvenience. There was no entrance toward the land, as we had often
heard. Indeed, it would be bad policy in the beaver, thus to make a
door by which his enemy, the wolverene, could easily get in and destroy
him. The houses were all plastered over with mud, which, by the
flapping of the tails and the constant paddling of the broad web-feet,
had become as smooth as if the mud had been laid on with a trowel. We
knew that they were also plastered inside, so as to render them warm and
commodious in winter.
"Some of these dwellings were not regular cones, but rather of an oval
shape; and sometimes two were placed, as it were, `under one roof,' so
as to steady them in the water, and save labour in the building. They
were all pretty large--many of them rising the height of a man above the
surface of the lake, and with broad tops, where the beavers delighted to
sit and sun themselves. Each house was built by its own inhabitants,
and each of them was inhabited by a single pair of beavers--man and
wife--and in some instances where there were families by four or five.
Some of them who had finished their houses earlier than the rest, had
already commenced gathering their provisions for the winter. These
consisted of the leaves and soft twigs of several species of trees--such
as willow, birch, and mulberry--and we saw collections of these floating
in the water in front of several of the houses.
"It was late in the season for beavers to be constructing a new dam. It
is generally in spring when they perform that labour; but it was evident
that the present colony had just arrived--no doubt driven by trappers or
Indians, or perhaps drought, from their last settlement, hundreds of
miles away. We conjectured that they must have come up the stream that
ran away to the eastward.
"They must have entered the valley some time before we discovered them,
as it would have taken them several days to gnaw down the trees and
accumulate the materials for the dam that had so suddenly started up to
alarm us. Some of these trees were nearly a foot in diameter, while
many of the stones--which they had rolled up or carried between their
fore-paws and throat--would have weighed nearly a score of pounds.
"It was evident, then, they had arrived late in the season, and had
worked hard to get ready for the winter. But Cudjo and I were
determined, as soon as we should have finished our building operations,
to lend them a hand in laying in their stock of provisions."