The two canoeists never imagined as they paddled down the lake, that a wary beaver was keeping just so far ahead of them, swimming from stump to overhanging bank and watching their every movement. When they hauled their canoe ashore and made a camp-fire, they little suspected that they were camping within fifty feet of the underground burrow of the beaver.
While they were cooking supper a flock of ducks came sailing over and three of their number alighted in the lake to feed upon water grass. Then Shaggycoat saw one of the strangers pick up the black stick that had spoken so loudly to the buck on the river bank a few days before. He felt a strong impulse to flee but there was a strange fascination about it all and he wanted to see what happened.
While he was still wondering which was the better course to pursue, the "thunderstick" spoke, and its echo rolled along the lake and was thrown from hillside to hillside, again and again. It seemed to Shaggycoat that his quiet lake had suddenly become the abode of thunder and lightning. He waited to see no more but fled to the burrow, where he found Brighteyes and the young beavers trembling with fright.
The same evening, an hour or two later, Shaggycoat heard an ominous whack, whack, whack upon his dam. It reminded him so forcibly of the pounding that they heard in the old Beaver City, before he and his grandfather had fled that he was filled with dismay. Was his own small dam and the lodge that he had reared with so much labor to be destroyed just as the old Beaver City had been, and he and Brighteyes slain?
The following day the strangers made very free with the beaver's pond, or at least Shaggycoat thought so, as he watched them covertly from a bunch of alders that grew partly in the water.
What right had they to go paddling about in their great red duck just as though they owned his lake?
They stopped at the island and examined the dilapidated lodge critically, but they took still greater liberties for they finally dug a hole in the side of the house and looked inside.
They were much interested in the beaver's dwelling and seemed to be trying to find out all about him.
It angered Shaggycoat extremely to see all these liberties taken with his possessions but what could he do against the strangers with a "thunderstick" that could kill a tall buck; so he discreetly kept out of sight, knowing that he could repair the house in a few minutes if they would only go away and leave the lake to its rightful owners.
At night the strangers again killed a duck with the "thunderstick" and drawing their canoe upon the bank made a fire.