with a whole beaver tail for my inspection. The tail was about ten
inches in length, nearly five inches wide at the broadest part and
perhaps an inch thick. The skin that covered the tail was dark in
color and very tough, suggestive of alligator skin. The meat of the
beaver tail was much prized by explorers and trappers, and visitors,
such as I, were often given this meat as a special treat.
The old fellow talked at length about the wise ways of the beaver he
had caught. Though I made note of a number of his observations for
future reference, I was skeptical of their authenticity. As years
passed and I talked with many men, I found that their observations
varied greatly. They were not always unprejudiced observers, their
observations were colored by their personal point of view, under
diverse conditions.
I early learned that trappers and hunters, as a rule, are not real
nature students. They are killers, and killers have not the patience
to wait and watch, to take painstaking care and limitless time in the
study of an animal. They will spend only a few minutes watching an
animal that a man without a gun might study for days, or even weeks.
They are prone to snap judgment. Then their over-active imaginations
supply ready misinformation for missing facts.
"A beaver has as many wives as he can git," my host informed me as we
sat before his fire. "There's some that don't have many, and agin
there's some that have a lot, and that's the reason we find some ponds
with only a little house an' others with mighty big ones."
A Brigham Youngish sort of conception of beaver domestic economy!
That same summer another trapper in Middle Park, not many miles from
the first, gave me his version of a beaver's domestic life.
"Don't think they mate at all," he told me; "they're always working to
beat time or else they're wanderin' off somewhere lookin' up good
cuttin' timber and dam sites."
Now, I am sure that Mr. and Mrs. Peg were mated, and for life. Indeed,
I believe all beavers mate for life. They are by nature domestic,
home-loving and industrious, and provident, storing up food for the
winter, making provision against the time food will be scarce because
of snow and ice. They have the cooperative instinct and often combine
their efforts, constructing a house large enough for the whole colony
in the deepest water of the pond, all joining in the harvesting of
green aspen or cottonwood.
Every fall I watched Mr. and Mrs. Peg at their repairs. Their tribe
increased as the years passed, and the shielding laws of the state
protected them. I called their group the "Old Settlers" colony.
[Illustration: Every fall I watched Mr. and Mrs. Peg at their repairs.]
One fall the Old Settlers abandoned their pond and constructed an
entirely new dam above it, thus solving a number of problems. Sand and
gravel carried down by the swift little stream had settled in the still
water of the pool and almost filled it. The ever-increasing family
outgrew the old house. All the near-by aspens had been cut; this
necessitated the dragging of trees too great a distance before they
could be pushed into the water and floated down. Coyotes had surprised
and killed a number of the Old Settlers' kin as they worked on the long
portage to the stream, and I am sure that the moving of their home was
partly to overcome this danger.
Then it was they earned the title, "Busy Beaver"! How they worked!
That was before the days of ubiquitous automobiles and the beavers had
not become nocturnal in their habits. They swarmed everywhere.
Certain ones were detailed to inspect the dam, make necessary repairs
and maintain the water at the same level all the time. Others worked
at the new house, piling sicks and mud into a heap. It grew, the dam
was raised, so the water was maintained within a few inches of the top
of the unfinished wall. Occasionally I caught a glimpse of some
workers in the deep water or near the shores of the ponds; they were
digging safety-firsts, water escapes for emergency use. These canals
led from the house to either bank and connected with tunnels that had
their openings concealed beneath the surface of the water. Thus,
should their pond be drained suddenly, they could escape by the canals
to their emergency homes beneath the bank.
Other beavers worked in the aspen grove, felling trees and cutting them
into lengths that could be pushed or pulled or rolled to the bank and
floated down the stream. Their work was impeded by the jamming of the
logs in a narrow rocky neck down which they had to be skidded into the
water.
Then the engineers decided upon the construction of a canal around the
rocky falls. They started digging at a point upstream, beyond the
troublesome neck, swung outward, away from the water to the fringe of
aspens, then back again to the stream below the rocks. In all the
canal was two hundred feet long, about two feet wide and averaged
fifteen inches deep. For a time all other work was suspended, and
night and day the whole population toiled on the canal. Apparently
each beaver had his own section to dig, and each went about his work in
his own way. With tooth and claw they worked. Often they cut slides
or runways down the sides of the canal giving them roads up which they
carried their loose dirt.
For thirty-seven nights they toiled in the dry ditch, then turned water
in, and completed the work of deepening the canal. This transportation
system saved them much labor and delay, and provided a safe route to
and from the grove, for they could dive into the water when their
enemies attacked.
I suspected Mr. and Mrs. Peg directed the storing away of that wood,
for it was piled in the deep water beside the house, now rising
majestically several feet about the level of the pool, just as they
always did theirs. The green wood was almost as heavy as the water,
and required little weight to force it under. Thus they always had
some food in their icebox, where they could reach it handily when the
pool froze over. I have observed other beavers on larger streams come
out of their tunnels in the banks and find food along the shores
throughout the winter months. But the smaller the stream the closer
the beaver sticks to his pond. This I believe is a matter of safety
for beavers are slow travelers, and if they venture far from their pool
they fall easy prey to such enemies as bobcats, coyotes, wolves and
mountain lions.
One day while following one of the small tributaries of the St. Vrain
River south of Long's Peak, I heard a loud explosion just ahead of me,
and when I emerged from the fringing woods I discovered two men busy
dynamiting the largest of the three beaver dams in the valley.
"Mining didn't pan out much," one of them replied in answer to my
question, "so we callated we'd take sum beaver fur to tide us over the
winter."
They were prospectors, out of grub, up against starving or getting a
job in the foothills town below, until with their golden promises, they
could again talk some sympathetic listener out of a grub stake. Not
content with obtaining beaver by the usual but slower method of
trapping, they had decided to blow up the dam, drain the pond and shoot
the animals as they sought to escape. Their rifles lay ready to their
hands.
For hours I lingered, to see what luck they would have. They set off
three heavy charges before the dam was shattered. When the water was
nearly drained out--it took but a few minutes--they grabbed their guns.
Not a beaver did any of us see.
They then set a charge of powder against the house and blew a gaping
hole in its side--but there was nobody home! Evidently all had escaped
by the canal in the bottom of the pond to the tunnel beneath the bank.
The men would not admit defeat, but set about to dig the beavers out of
the bank. Darkness saw their task unfinished so they camped for the
night at the entrance of the tunnel; they piled heavy stones at its
mouth hoping to trap the animals within.
Next morning I watched them resume their work, feeling sympathy for the
beavers, but not daring to interfere. Shortly after noon the quest
ended quite unexpectedly. The diggers had discovered a hidden exit
that was concealed among the willows, the beavers had followed the
canal, which could not be drained, to their refuge tunnel in the bank;
and when their enemies destroyed the tunnel, they had used the hidden
exit, and had in all probability made good their retreat during the
night.
As more people settled in the valleys, there was an inevitable
overlapping of claims. The settlers claimed both the water and the
land, and they had government deeds to back them up in their claims.
But the beaver had prior rights, and gamely adhered to them. A feud
arose that is still unsettled between the Old Settlers and the
newcomers. In my rambles I continually came upon homesteaders striving
to drain the valleys and raise grass for their cattle, while
simultaneously the beavers were working to maintain high water. Many
of them lost their lives for their cause, but rarely did they forsake a
home site once established. In the same sections, where the
homesteaders had used aspen for their fence posts, the beavers, no
doubt mistaking them for trees, cut them down. Sometimes their pluck
and persistence won them the admiration of their enemies. In most
cases they won out.
One day, far up near the headwaters of the Cache la Podre River in
Colorado, I came upon a rancher trying to drain a number of beaver
ponds to secure water for irrigation; it was a very dry season and
water was scarce. During the day he tore gaps in the dams, during the
night the beavers repaired the breaks. When after opening the dams the
rancher hurried down to his fields to regulate the flow of water, the
beavers, even in the daytime, would swarm forth and plug up the holes.
Finally in desperation, the man set traps in the gaps he had opened in
the dams. He caught a few beavers and decided that his troubles were
over. But the survivors met the emergency. They floated material down
from above and wedged it into the breaks, without going near the traps.
At this stage of the struggle an old prospector came down from the
higher mountains, driving his burros ahead of him. Hearing of the
rancher's predicament, he suggested his own panacea for all troubles,
dynamite. Enthusiastically, the rancher accepted his proposal. Soon
the dams were in ruins.
A mile below where the dams had been destroyed an irrigation ditch
tapped the river and carried a full head to the green fields. I saw
the rancher standing in the middle of the field, water flowing all
about him. He looked upstream and chuckled, then leaned triumphantly
on his shovel handle. For a long time, he leaned thus, lost in dreams
of prosperity.
Suddenly he awoke and hurried along his supply ditch. Barely a trickle
was coming down it. The beavers had dammed the intake.
I once worked for a rancher who had a homestead on the North Fork of
the St. Vrain River, which heads south of Long's Peak. He had just
finished clearing a patch of ground to raise "truck" on.
"We've got to get rid of some beaver," he told me the very first day.
He shouldered his shovel and walked down to the dam that sprawled
across the meadow for several hundred feet.
"I cut her loose," he informed me on his return. "She'll soon dry out
so we can put in the crop."
Next morning, whistling happily, he started out for the meadow. His
whistle died away as he caught sight of the water in the pond. It was
as high as usual. The beavers had repaired the break.
Day after day he cut the dam, night after night, the beavers repaired
it. He trapped five of them before they became "trap-wise." After
that they either turned the traps over or covered them with mud. After
trying a number of ruses to frighten them away, the man hung a lighted
lantern in the break he had opened in the dam. The next morning his
whistle piped, merrily, the break was still open. But his joy was
short-lived, for on the following night the beavers constructed a new
section of dam above the break, curving it like a horseshoe.
"Hope they appreciated my givin' 'em light to work by," he laughed; and
gave up the contest.
Beavers seem to possess sagacity in varying degrees. The old animals
are wise according to their years; the stupid and lazy die young. They
adapt themselves quickly to changed conditions; they outwit their
enemies by sheer cunning, never in physical combat; rarely do they
defend themselves--and not once have I known one to take the offensive
side of a fray. Watching them waddling along, one wonders how they
accomplish their great engineering feats in so short a time. Of
course, they can move more rapidly in water than on land, but I suspect
its "everlasting teamwork" that accounts for their achievements. They
are prolific and, unlike the bees, drones are unknown to them.
Cooperative industry--there lies the secret.
I was absent from my cabin for more than a year; and upon my return at
once visited the Old Settlers. Like any other thriving community, they
had made several improvements--two new ponds and houses had been built.
Tracks in the edge of a small new pond showed that my pioneer friends,
Mr. and Mrs. Peg, had removed to a new home. Whether the increasing
number of beavers in the larger pond got on the old folks' nerves, I do
not know; but whatever the reason, they were living alone. I walked
rapidly toward their home, instead of approaching slowly and giving
them a chance to look me over. As I neared the edge of the road, one
of them, I presume Pa Peg, smote the water a mighty whack with his
tail. Both disappeared. I watched for their reappearance, for I knew
that they were watching me from their concealment among the willows. I
sang, whistled, called to them to come out--that I was their old friend
returned. My persistence was at last rewarded. Shyly they came to the
surface, watching me sharply the while, diving at my slightest
movement, reappearing on the farther shore, cautious and canny as ever.
It was spring. Within a few weeks after my homecoming the Pegs would
permit my near approach as they had done before I went away. Though
they worked mostly at night, they did venture out in daytime. If they
were working at separate tasks, the first to discover me would thump
the ground or give the water a resounding whack.
One morning Daddy Peg was missing from the pond. Downstream I picked
up his tracks and discovered that he was hastening away from home. As
it was springtime, I was not concerned lest he was deserting his
faithful wife. It was his habit to leave home when Mrs. Peg was
"expecting." I knew he'd come waddling back in a few weeks to give the
babies their daily plunge.
Sure enough, Mrs. Peg came forth with four midgets in fur; a happy,
romping family that splashed about the pool for hours at a time. Like
all their kin, they had been born with their eyes open and were much
"perter" then other animal infants. They swam, and ate, and took the
trail at once. If Mrs. Peg showed fear of anything, the youngsters
took quick alarm, and forever afterward shunned the object. Of me,
Mrs. Peg took little notice, merely giving me the right of way if I
intruded on one of her trails, or stopping work to watch me curiously
whenever I came near. The beaver babies accepted me as a friend,
permitted me to sit or stand near them as they played.
One morning, as I approached the pool, I discovered the four youngsters
in great agitation. They were not playing. They swam about
restlessly, circled the pool, visited the dam, swam out to their house,
dived inside it, only to reappear almost at once. I searched around
the pond, and found their mother's fresh tracks leading toward the
aspen grove. Near it she had been overtaken by a coyote.
In vain I tried to catch the motherless waifs, but they eluded me. I
went home, made a rude sort of dip-net from an old sack, and returned
to the pool.
During my absence a strange beaver mother with a brood of five babies
had visited the pool where the orphans lived. She immediately adopted
the wee bereft babies. Shortly the pool was merry with the rompings of
the combined families.
CHAPTER NINE
MOUNTAIN CLIMBING
Mountain climbing is the reverse of the general rule of life in that
the ascent is easier than the descent, and much safer. Most climbers
underestimate the time required to make a chosen trip, and, starting
out with the day before them, ascend at their leisure, making frequent
and unnecessarily long stops to rest, drinking in the beauty of the
prospect from each rise attained, forgetting to allow themselves
sufficient time for the even more difficult descent. Consequently the
return trip is crowded on the edge of darkness, a dangerous condition
on any trail any time, but especially hazardous when the climber is
weary and, therefore, not alert. It is impossible for him to see the
slight footholds or handholds on which he must put his trust, and
weight.
One day, as a boy, I came to grief because I was so absorbed by the
interesting things about me that I took no note of the passing of time
or of the altitude to which I had climbed. From my camp at Bear Lake I
had followed the old Flattop trail to the Divide, from which I could
see a hundred miles or more in all directions; to the north the
mountains of Wyoming peeped through purple haze; eastward, the
foothills dropped away to the flat and endless prairies, with gleaming
lakes everywhere. West and south, my own Rockies rose, tier on tier,
to snowy heights. Gay and fragrant flowers beckoned my footsteps off
the trail; friendly conies "squee-eked" at me from their rocky lookout
posts; fat marmots stuffed themselves, making the most of their brief
summer. A buck deer left off polishing his new horns on a scraggly
timberline tree to look at me. Overhead an eagle swept round and round
in endless circles.
From the rim of the canyon, between Flattop and Hallett, I viewed the
spot where I had blundered over the edge of the snow-cornice on the way
to the dance. Beneath lay Tyndall glacier, its greenish ice exposed by
the summer thaw. I circled the head of the canyon and climbed to the
top of Hallett. From my eerie height, I got an eagle's view of the
world below--a hazy, hushed world where the birds called faintly, the
brooks murmured quietly and even the wind spoke in whispers. From near
by came the crash of glacier ice; falling rocks that thundered down the
cliffs.
All the afternoon I traveled along the crest of the Divide, wandering
southward, away from familiar country into a new maze of peaks and
glaciers, deep canyons and abrupt precipices. Suddenly a gale of wind
struck me, blinded me with penetrating snow. In that instant, without
preliminary or warning, summer changed to winter, and forced me off the
heights. It was impossible to thread my way back over the route I had
come; for it twisted in and out, around up-flung crags and cliffs.
My compass showed that the wind was driving eastward, the direction in
which I wanted to go; so I headed down wind, secure in the thought that
I would soon be off the roof of the world. Lightning and heavy thunder
accompanied the snowstorm, the clouds came down and blotted out the
day; twilight descended upon the earth.
A band of mountain sheep started up from their shelter behind an
upthrust rock and ran ahead of me. I followed them, partly because
they ran in the direction I was going, and partly because they are apt
to select the safest way down the cliffs.
But they turned aside the moment they were out of the wind, swung up on
a protected ledge and there halted to wait out the storm. My compass
had gone crazy. A dozen times I tried it out. It would point a
different direction whenever I moved a few steps. However, the compass
mattered little; the chief thing that concerned me was getting down off
the roof of the world.
Snow swirled down the cliffs, plastering rocks and ledges until both
footholds and handholds were hidden. Still I had to go down, there was
nothing else to do. The hardy sheep, with their heavy coats, could
wait out the storm. But night, with numbing cold, and treacherous
darkness in which I'd dare not move, would soon o'ertake and vanquish
me.
For an hour the ledges provided footing. By turning about, twisting
and doubling, there was always a way down. Of a sudden the clouds
parted; a long bar of sunshine touched the green forest far below me,
focused for a moment upon a single treetop, then vanished as though the
shutter of a celestial camera has snapped shut.
At last I came to a ledge beneath which the sheer cliff dropped away
into unfathomable snowy depths. After short excursions to right and
left I discovered that a section of the cliff had split off and dropped
into the canyon, leaving only sheer rock walls that offered nothing in
the way of footholds. Irresolutely, I faced back the way I had come.
Overhead the wind roared deafeningly; the snow came piling down. No
hope of retracing my steps. I was tired; that upward climb would be
slow and tortuous, would require great strength and endurance. I faced
about and began a thorough, desperate search for a downward route. I
stood marooned in the canyon wall shaped like a crude horseshoe. At its
toe water had leaped down and eroded a slight groove in the solid rock.
This was my only chance. It was not inviting, but I had no
alternative. It led me down a hundred feet, then tightened into a sort
of chimney. Just below I could see the swaying top of a big tree.
Firewood must be near at hand! Wider ledges must lay close beneath!
Fifty feet down the chimney, just as it deepened into a comfortable
groove with rough, gripable sides, I came to a sudden halt, for the
rock was broken away; the cleft bottom of the chute overhung the cliff
below. Sweat streamed down my face, in spite of the cold wind.
Visions of a leaping campfire died out of my mind.
The Engelmann spruce swayed toward me encouragingly, as though offering
to help me down. But its top was many feet from the wall. There was
an abandoned bird's nest in it; a little below that was a dead limb
with a woodpecker's incision at its base. By leaning out I could see,
a hundred feet or more below the bottom of the swaying tree.
In my extremity I shouted, even as I had done in the glacier crevasse,
though there was no one to hear. The echo came back sharply. "There
must be another wall angling this one," I thought.
"It's got to be done, there's no other way." I spoke the words out
loud to boost my courage.
The tip of the old spruce rose to almost my level; but there was that
intervening gulf between it and the rock on which I stood. How wide
was that gulf, I wondered. Five feet? Ten? Too far!
A score of times I surveyed the tree-top, tried to estimate the
distance, sought a foothold in the cramped rock chute, and worked into
position for the leap.
No sharpshooter ever aligned his sights more carefully than I did my
feet. My coat was buttoned tightly, cap pulled down. When at last I
was all set, I hesitated, postponed the jump and cowered back against
the wall. A dozen times I made ready, filled my lungs with deep
breaths, stretched each leg out to make sure it was in working order,
but every time my courage failed me.
Suddenly resolute, not giving myself chance to think, I tensed, filled
my lungs, leaned away from the rock, and launched headlong.
As my body crashed into the treetop my fingers clutched like talons, my
arms clasped the limbs as steel bands. I was safe in the arms of that
centuries-old spruce.
Never since that day have I taken such a chance. The thought of it,
even now, sends cold, prickly chills along my spine.