Then it came back to him. It was at the old Beaver City when the trappers were chopping holes in the ice and destroying its inhabitants. The trap also into which he had stepped the summer before had been strong with the same odor. Then the beaver's eyes grew big with wonder and fright, for there in the tree above him, not fifty feet away, he saw one of the dreaded strangers watching him. With a resounding slap his tail smote the water and a second later, only a ripple showed where the beaver had disappeared.
The following morning the meddlesome strangers loaded their belongings into the great duck, carried it around the end of the dam and paddled away down stream.
It was with great joy that Shaggycoat observed from his place of hiding, these movements on their part. But he thought they might be trying to fool him, so he followed at a distance.
When he had seen them round a bend in the stream nearly a mile from the dam, he concluded that their leaving was no sham, and went back to his lake, well pleased with the turn of affairs.
He and Brighteyes and another pair of beavers, who had returned with him from his summer ramble, began work on the dam and by the time the first freeze came, it was strong and symmetrical and higher and longer than it had been before. This made the water set back and several families of musquash, who had built along the shore of the lake, were drowned out, and obliged to gather new supplies of winter edibles.
This angered the muskrat families who revenged themselves on the beavers in a way they did not like.
In the morning, when the builders left off working on the dam, it would be in good shape, but by twilight it would be leaking badly.
Examination showed many holes tunneled through the mud, which made the dam leak. For several days Shaggycoat could not discover who was molesting his dam, but he finally set a watchman, and the destroyers were caught in the act. After that whenever a muskrat was seen anywhere near the dam, he was rudely hurried to another part of the lake. When the dam had been repaired, the lodge was attended to, but this winter there were two lodges on the island instead of one.
The forest was now entirely denuded and the naked arms of maple and poplar swayed fitfully in the rude gusts of the boisterous early winter wind. In its mad careering down the aisles of the pathetic forest, it caught up the dead leaves and whirled them about gleefully.
Summer had had its day, and November must now have its inning.