A BIT OF TRAGEDY
Shaggycoat made his way home in a leisurely manner, stopping a day here and there at some lake or river that pleased his fancy. The home sense had not yet fully mastered him and he still found pleasure in running water, and upon grassy fringed banks.
One morning when he had been upon his homeward journey for about a week, he turned aside to explore a little stream that looked inviting. He intended to return to the river and resume his journey in a few minutes, but the unexpected happened and he did not do as he had intended. He was swimming leisurely in a shallow spot, where the stream was very narrow, when, without any warning, or premonition of danger, he set his foot in a trap. The trap had not been baited but merely set at a narrow point in the stream, in hope that some stray mink or muskrat would blunder into it. It was nothing that Shaggycoat could blame himself for, but merely one of those accidents that befall the most wary animals at times.
The trap was rather light for a beaver, but it had caught him just above the first joint, and held on like a vise. At first Shaggycoat tore about frantically, churning up the water and roiling the stream, seeking by mere strength to free himself, but he soon found that this was in vain. He then tried drowning the trap, but this was equally futile. Next he buried it in the mud but it always came up after him when he sought to steal away. Then he waited for a long time and was quiet, thinking it might let him go of its own accord, but the trap had no such intention.
As the hours wore on, his paw began to swell and pain him, but finally the pain gave place to numbness, and his whole fore leg began to prickle and feel queer. With each hour that passed, a wild terror grew upon Shaggycoat, a terror of he knew not what. The trap gripped him tighter and tighter, and Brighteyes and the young beavers seemed so far away that he despaired of ever seeing them again.
Finally the day passed, the sun set, and the stars came out. The hours of darkness that hold no gloom for a beaver, in which he glories as the other creatures do in day, were at hand; but they held no joy for poor Shaggycoat. Every few minutes he would have a spell of wrenching at the trap, but he was becoming exhausted, although he had thought his strength inexhaustible. At last a desperate thought came to him. It seemed the only way out of the difficulty.
He edged the end of the trap where the chain was, between two stones, then began slowly moving about it in a circle. Occasionally the trap would come loose, then it would be replaced and the twisting process renewed. Finally there was a snap, like the crack of a dry twig, and the bone had been broken. The worst was over. He gnawed away and twisted at the broken paw until it was severed.
Did it hurt? There was no outcry, only the splashing of the water, and a bright trail of blood floated down-stream, and the trap sunk to the bottom to hide the ragged bleeding paw that it still held, while a wiser and a sadder beaver made his way cautiously back to the main stream, licking the ragged stump of his fore paw as he went.
The cold water soon stopped the bleeding and helped to reduce the fever, but Shaggycoat was so spent with the night in the trap that he stopped to rest for two days before resuming his journey homeward.
Just as the sun peeped over the eastern hills on the morning that Shaggycoat freed himself from the trap, a boy of some twelve summers might have been seen hurrying across the fields toward the brook, closely followed by an old black and tan hound. The boy carried a small Stevens Rifle known as the hunter's pet, across his arm, and both boy and dog were excited and eager for the morning's tramp.