THE USURPERS
It was that glorious season between spring and summer, when the northern
nights were brilliant with moon and stars, that Kazan and Gray Wolf set
up the valley between the two ridges on a long hunt. It was the
beginning of that _wanderlust_ which always comes to the furred and
padded creatures of the wilderness immediately after the young-born of
early spring have left their mothers to find their own way in the big
world. They struck west from their winter home under the windfall in the
swamp. They hunted mostly at night and behind them they left a trail
marked by the partly eaten carcasses of rabbits and partridges. It was
the season of slaughter and not of hunger. Ten miles west of the swamp
they killed a fawn. This, too, they left after a single meal. Their
appetites became satiated with warm flesh and blood. They grew sleek and
fat and each day they basked longer in the warm sunshine. They had few
rivals. The lynxes were in the heavier timber to the south. There were
no wolves. Fisher-cat, marten and mink were numerous along the creek,
but these were neither swift-hunting nor long-fanged. One day they came
upon an old otter. He was a giant of his kind, turning a whitish gray
with the approach of summer. Kazan, grown fat and lazy, watched him
idly. Blind Gray Wolf sniffed at the fishy smell of him in the air. To
them he was no more than a floating stick, a creature out of their
element, along with the fish, and they continued on their way not
knowing that this uncanny creature with the coal-like flappers was soon
to become their ally in one of the strange and deadly feuds of the
wilderness, which are as sanguinary to animal life as the deadliest
feuds of men are to human life.
The day following their meeting with the otter Gray Wolf and Kazan
continued three miles farther westward, still following the stream. Here
they encountered the interruption to their progress which turned them
over the northward ridge. The obstacle was a huge beaver dam. The dam
was two hundred yards in width and flooded a mile of swamp and timber
above it. Neither Gray Wolf nor Kazan was deeply interested in beavers.
They also moved out of their element, along with the fish and the otter
and swift-winged birds.
So they turned into the north, not knowing that nature had already
schemed that they four--the dog, wolf, otter and beaver--should soon be
engaged in one of those merciless struggles of the wild which keep
animal life down to the survival of the fittest, and whose tragic
histories are kept secret under the stars and the moon and the winds
that tell no tales.
For many years no man had come into this valley between the two ridges
to molest the beaver. If a Sarcee trapper had followed down the nameless
creek and had caught the patriarch and chief of the colony, he would at
once have judged him to be very old and his Indian tongue would have
given him a name. He would have called him Broken Tooth, because one of
the four long teeth with which he felled trees and built dams was broken
off. Six years before Broken Tooth had led a few beavers of his own age
down the stream, and they had built their first small dam and their
first lodge. The following April Broken Tooth's mate had four little
baby beavers, and each of the other mothers in the colony increased the
population by two or three or four. At the end of the fourth year this
first generation of children, had they followed the usual law of nature,
would have mated and left the colony to build a dam and lodges of their
own. They mated, but did not emigrate.
The next year the second generation of children, now four years old,
mated but did not leave, so that in this early summer of the sixth year
the colony was very much like a great city that had been long besieged
by an enemy. It numbered fifteen lodges and over a hundred beavers, not
counting the fourth babies which had been born during March and April.
The dam had been lengthened until it was fully two hundred yards in
length. Water had been made to flood large areas of birch and poplar and
tangled swamps of tender willow and elder. Even with this food was
growing scarce and the lodges were overcrowded. This was because
beavers are almost human in their love for home. Broken Tooth's lodge
was fully nine feet long by seven wide inside, and there were now living
in it children and grandchildren to the number of twenty-seven. For this
reason Broken Tooth was preparing to break the precedent of his tribe.
When Kazan and Gray Wolf sniffed carelessly at the strong scents of the
beaver city, Broken Tooth was marshaling his family, and two of his sons
and their families, for the exodus.
As yet Broken Tooth was the recognized leader in the colony. No other
beaver had grown to his size and strength. His thick body was fully
three feet long. He weighed at least sixty pounds. His tail was fourteen
inches in length and five in width, and on a still night he could strike
the water a blow that could be heard a quarter of a mile away. His
webbed hindfeet were twice as large as his mate's and he was easily the
swiftest swimmer in the colony.
Following the afternoon when Gray Wolf and Kazan struck into the north
came the clear still night when Broken Tooth climbed to the top of the
dam, shook himself, and looked down to see that his army was behind
him. The starlit water of the big pond rippled and flashed with the
movement of many bodies. A few of the older beavers clambered up after
Broken Tooth and the old patriarch plunged down into the narrow stream
on the other side of the dam. Now the shining silken bodies of the
emigrants followed him in the starlight. In ones and twos and threes
they climbed over the dam and with them went a dozen children born three
months before. Easily and swiftly they began the journey down-stream,
the youngsters swimming furiously to keep up with their parents. In all
they numbered forty. Broken Tooth swam well in the lead, with his older
workers and battlers behind him. In the rear followed mothers and
children.
All of that night the journey continued. The otter, their deadliest
enemy--deadlier even than man--hid himself in a thick clump of willows
as they passed. Nature, which sometimes sees beyond the vision of man,
had made him the enemy of these creatures that were passing his
hiding-place in the night. A fish-feeder, he was born to be a conserver
as well as a destroyer of the creatures on which he fed. Perhaps nature
told him that too many beaver dams stopped the run of spawning fish and
that where there were many beavers there were always few fish. Maybe he
reasoned as to why fish-hunting was poor and he went hungry. So, unable
to cope singly with whole tribes of his enemies, he worked to destroy
their dams. How this, in turn, destroyed the beavers will be seen in the
feud in which nature had already schemed that he should play a part with
Kazan and Gray Wolf.
A dozen times during this night Broken Tooth halted to investigate the
food supplies along the banks. But in the two or three places where he
found plenty of the bark on which they lived it would have been
difficult to have constructed a dam. His wonderful engineering instincts
rose even above food instincts. And when each time he moved onward, no
beaver questioned his judgment by remaining behind. In the early dawn
they crossed the burn and came to the edge of the swamp domain of Kazan
and Gray Wolf. By right of discovery and possession that swamp belonged
to the dog and the wolf. In every part of it they had left their mark of
ownership. But Broken Tooth was a creature of the water and the scent of
his tribe was not keen. He led on, traveling more slowly when they
entered the timber. Just below the windfall home of Kazan and Gray Wolf
he halted, and clambering ashore balanced himself upright on his webbed
hindfeet and broad four-pound tail. Here he had found ideal conditions.
A dam could be constructed easily across the narrow stream, and the
water could be made to flood a big supply of poplar, birch, willow and
alder. Also the place was sheltered by heavy timber, so that the winters
would be warm. Broken Tooth quickly gave his followers to understand
that this was to be their new home. On both sides of the stream they
swarmed into the near-by timber. The babies began at once to nibble
hungrily at the tender bark of willow and alder. The older ones, every
one of them now a working engineer, investigated excitedly, breakfasting
by nibbling off a mouthful of bark now and then.
That day the work of home-building began. Broken Tooth himself selected
a big birch that leaned over the stream, and began the work of cutting
through the ten-inch butt with his three long teeth. Though the old
patriarch had lost one tooth, the three that remained had not
deteriorated with age. The outer edge of them was formed of the hardest
enamel; the inner side was of soft ivory. They were like the finest
steel chisels, the enamel never wearing away and the softer ivory
replacing itself year by year as it was consumed. Sitting on his
hindlegs, with his forepaws resting against the tree and with his heavy
tail giving him a firm balance, Broken Tooth began gnawing a narrow ring
entirely around the tree. He worked tirelessly for several hours, and
when at last he stopped to rest another workman took up the task.
Meanwhile a dozen beavers were hard at work cutting timber. Long before
Broken Tooth's tree was ready to fall across the stream, a smaller
poplar crashed into the water. The cutting on the big birch was in the
shape of an hour-glass. In twenty hours it fell straight across the
creek. While the beaver prefers to do most of his work at night he is a
day-laborer as well, and Broken Tooth gave his tribe but little rest
during the days that followed. With almost human intelligence the little
engineers kept at their task. Smaller trees were felled, and these were
cut into four or five foot lengths. One by one these lengths were rolled
to the stream, the beavers pushing them with their heads and forepaws,
and by means of brush and small limbs they were fastened securely
against the birch. When the framework was completed the wonderful cement
construction was begun. In this the beavers were the masters of men.
Dynamite was the only force that could hereafter break up what they were
building now. Under their cup-like chins the beavers brought from the
banks a mixture of mud and fine twigs, carrying from half a pound to a
pound at a load and began filling up the framework with it. Their task
seemed tremendous, and yet Broken Tooth's engineers could carry a ton of
this mud and twig mixture during a day and night. In three days the
water was beginning to back, until it rose about the butts of a dozen or
more trees and was flooding a small area of brush. This made work
easier. From now on materials could be cut in the water and easily
floated. While a part of the beaver colony was taking advantage of the
water, others were felling trees end to end with the birch, laying the
working frame of a dam a hundred feet in width.
They had nearly accomplished this work when one morning Kazan and Gray
Wolf returned to the swamp.