Presently he noticed what at first looked like another beaver lying on the floor asleep near him. But there was something strange and unnatural about the beaver that filled Shaggycoat with fear.
He seemed to be all flattened out just as though a tree or large stone had fallen upon him. But even any kind of a beaver's company was preferable to these creatures into whose power he had fallen, so Shaggycoat poked the sleeping beaver, to waken him.
His nose was not warm and moist, as it should have been, but dry and hard. Shaggycoat poked again, and the sleeping beaver moved, not by his own power, but the slight touch he had given had moved him. Again the bewildered Shaggycoat nosed his companion and the sleeper rolled over.
At the sight that met his eyes, every hair upon Shaggycoat's back and neck stood up, for the sleeping beaver was not a live beaver at all, but merely a beaver skin that had come off in some unaccountable manner. He had often seen the winter coat of the water-snake lying on the bank of the stream, but never that of a beaver. What strange unknown thing was this that had happened to his dead kinsman!
Presently Joe opened a trap-door in the floor to descend to his improvised cellar, and quick as a flash the captive beaver shot down ahead of him. But, alas, no fresh cool lake opened its inviting arms to receive him as he had expected. Instead of this he landed with a bump on the bottom of a cold, dark hole, which seemed even more like a prison than the room above.
It was something though to be away from their eyes, especially Joe's, and it was quiet down here and perhaps he could think what to do, so Shaggycoat wriggled into a far corner and kept very quiet while Joe rummaged about for flour and bacon. When he ascended the ladder to the room above, the beaver felt less terrified, although he knew that his plight was still desperate.
He had not been long alone when he began to dig himself a burrow in one corner of the cellar. Perhaps it would lead down to the lake, for surely these creatures would not be so foolish as to build their lodge on the land. Even if he could not strike water, the burrow would make a place of refuge where he could get away from the noise and the man-scent that fairly made his nostrils tingle.
So industriously he labored that when Wahawa came down the following morning to see if the beaver was spoiling their provisions, she could see nothing of him at first. Finally, after flashing the torchlight into all the corners, she discovered a pile of dirt, and holding the torch down to the entrance of the hole, found the beaver staring wild-eyed and pitifully up at her from the bottom of his new hiding-place.
"O thou, Puigagis, king of the beavers," she cried in a low rippling voice that again reminded the prisoner of the purling of a tiny stream, "come up to Wahawa, whose name is Running-water. She will not hurt you. She will feed you and caress you." The beaver was always the Indian's friend, teaching him industry and the need of a store of food for the cold winter months.
"Come up to Wahawa, O king of the beavers, and she will be your friend. The great trapper has gone to the lake and the streams to visit his many traps and cannot harm you; besides you belong to Running-water. Come up and she will be your friend."