Shaggycoat: The Biography of a Beaver

by Clarence Hawkes

In low places where it was moist, the first frost of the season lay heavy upon the grass, and its delicate lace work was still plainly seen on stones and by the brookside. It was a fresh crisp morning, just such a morning as makes one's blood tingle, and whets the appetite.

The birds, as well as the boy, had seen the frost, and the robins were flocking, though most of the summer songsters had already gone.

About half an hour after Shaggycoat left his ragged paw in the trap and swam away, leaving a trail of blood behind him, the boy and dog parted the alder bushes, and came to the spot where the trap had been set.

"By vum, Trixey, something has been in the trap!" exclaimed the boy, as he noted the muddy water and the tracks upon the bank, but he could not see whether there was still anything in the trap because of the silt. He began slowly to haul up the chain, Trixey watching the process eagerly. At last the end of the chain was reached, and the trap dripping water, but containing only the ragged paw, came to the surface.

"Why, Trixey, he's gone!" exclaimed the boy. "It wasn't no muskrat, either. I'll bet it was an otter."

After examining his bloody trophy carefully for a time, the boy reset the trap, and, wrapping the paw in some fern leaves, took it home to prove his story, but it was not until several days afterward when he showed the paw to an old trapper, that he learned that a beaver had been in his trap.

While Shaggycoat is making his way painfully back to his mountain lake, occasionally stopping to favor his freshly amputated paw, let us go back to the lake and see how Brighteyes and the young beavers have been spending the summer.

For the first few days after Shaggycoat's going, it had seemed very lonely without him. He had always been so active, coming and going, that he was greatly missed. But a mother beaver with four lively youngsters to provide for, has many things to think of, so Brighteyes soon found that she was kept quite busy attending to the family and providing food, which had been done before by her mate.

One bright May morning when the air was sweet with the scent of quickening buds, the winds soft with the breath of spring and a throb of joy was in each heart; when beast and bird and man were all glad because the spring had come again, Brighteyes went to the upper end of the pond for some saplings for the supply of bark was low. She left the young beavers in the lodge, where they seemed to be quite safe, but the smell of beaver meat had been tickling the nostrils of the gluttonous wolverine, and he had lingered about the pond all the spring. The beaver lodge had been too hard for him to dig through in midwinter, when it was frozen like a rock, but the sun and winds had drawn the frost from the walls, and now it was no harder than any other mud house.

It was so pleasant outside where everything was singing and springing to the light that Brighteyes stayed longer than she intended, and when she returned and dove into the underground passage, leading to the lodge, she was surprised to find three of the young beavers in the underground channel, as close to the water as they could get. They were very much frightened and did not want to go back into the lodge, so she took them to one of the underground burrows along the bank, and left them there while she reconnoitred.