AT THE noon halt they were about ten miles from home and had made
fifteen deadfalls for marten, for practice was greatly reducing the time
needed for each.
In the afternoon they went on, but the creek had become a mere rill and
they were now high up in a more level stretch of country that was
more or less swampy. As they followed the main course of the dwindling
stream, looking ever for signs of fur-bearers, they crossed and
recrossed the water. At length Quonab stopped, stared, and pointed at
the rill, no longer clear but clouded with mud. His eyes shone as he
jerked his head up stream and uttered the magic word, “Beaver.”
They tramped westerly for a hundred yards through a dense swamp of
alders, and came at last to an irregular pond that spread out among the
willow bushes and was lost in the swampy thickets. Following the stream
they soon came to a beaver dam, a long, curving bank of willow branches
and mud, tumbling through the top of which were a dozen tiny streams
that reunited their waters below to form the rivulet they had been
following.
Red-winged blackbirds were sailing in flocks about the pond; a number
of ducks were to be seen, and on a dead tree, killed by the backed up
water, a great blue heron stood. Many smaller creatures moved or flitted
in the lively scene, while far out near the middle rose a dome-like pile
of sticks, a beaver lodge, and farther three more were discovered. No
beaver were seen, but the fresh cut sticks, the floating branches peeled
of all the bark, and the long, strong dam in good repair were enough
to tell a practised eye that here was a large colony of beavers in
undisturbed possession.
In those days beaver was one of the most valued furs. The creature is
very easy to trap; so the discovery of the pond was like the finding of
a bag of gold. They skirted its uncertain edges and Quonab pointed out
the many landing places of the beaver; little docks they seemed, built
up with mud and stones with deep water plunge holes alongside. Here and
there on the shore was a dome-shaped ant's nest with a pathway to it
from the pond, showing, as the Indian said, that here the beaver came on
sunny days to lie on the hill and let the swarming ants come forth and
pick the vermin from their fur. At one high point projecting into the
still water they found a little mud pie with a very strong smell; this,
the Indian said, was a “castor cache,” the sign that, among beavers,
answers the same purpose as the bear tree among bears.
Although the pond seemed small they had to tramp a quarter of a mile
before reaching the upper end and here they found another dam, with its
pond. This was at a slightly higher level and contained a single lodge;
after this they found others, a dozen ponds in a dozen successive rises,
the first or largest and the second only having lodges, but all were
evidently part of the thriving colony, for fresh cut trees were seen on
every side. “Ugh, good; we get maybe fifty beaver,” said the Indian, and
they knew they had reached the Promised Land.
Rolf would gladly have spent the rest of the day exploring the pond and
trying for a beaver, when the eventide should call them to come forth,
but Quonab said, “Only twenty deadfall; we should have one hundred and
fifty.” So making for a fine sugar bush on the dry ground west of the
ponds they blazed a big tree, left a deadfall there, and sought the
easiest way over the rough hills that lay to the east, in hopes of
reaching the next stream leading down to their lake.