FUGITIVES
At the time when our story begins, Shaggycoat was a two-year-old beaver, fleeing with his grandfather from he knew not what. They had been so happy in the woodland lake, which was their home before the terrible intrusion, that the whole matter seemed more like a hideous dream than a reality.
When Shaggycoat thought of the old days and his family, he could remember warm summer afternoons upon clean sand banks, where he and his brothers and sisters frolicked together. Then there were such delightful swims in the deep lake, where they played water-tag, and all sorts of games, diving and plunging and swimming straight away, not to mention deep plunges to the bottom of the lake where they vied with one another in staying down. Then when they were hungry, the bulbs of the lily and a cluster of wild hops made a dinner that would make a beaver's mouth water; with perhaps some spicy bark added as a relish.
Then came the cold and the pond was covered with ice. They could still see the sun by day and the stars by night, but they could not come to the surface to breathe as they had done before. There were a great many air holes, and places under the ice where the water did not reach it, but for breathing space they had to depend largely upon the queer conical houses in which they lived and their burrows along the bank.
There was still another way to breathe that I had nearly forgotten. A beaver or any of these little Water Folks can come up to the surface and breathe against the ice. A big flat bubble is at once formed and as it strikes the ice it is purified and then the beaver breathes it in again and it is almost as fresh as though it came from the upper air. This he can do three or four times before having to find an air hole or going into one of the houses or burrows.
The beavers were very snug under the ice which kept away the wind and cold, and also their worst enemy, man.
The breath of the family made the houses warm, and as the walls were frozen solid, and were two or three feet thick, they were very hard to break into.
A store of wood had been laid up from which the bark was stripped for food as fast as it was needed, so that Beaver City had been very snug and comfortable, before the trouble came.
Then when they were sleeping through the short winter days, and prowling about the lake in the night in search of fresh twigs or sticks that had been frozen into the ice, the trouble began.
First there came the sound of pounding and soon there were holes in the ice near their supply of wood. Then occasionally a beaver who was hungry and had gone for breakfast was missed from the family or lodge where he lived. At first they thought he had gone for a swim on the lake and would soon come back, but when several had gone out to the winter's store and had not returned, the truth dawned upon some of the older and wiser beavers. Their forest lake had been invaded by some enemy, probably man, and one by one the colony was being slaughtered.