In Beaver World

by Enos A. Mills

I had a few glimpses of the harvest-gathering and occasionally saw Flat-top. One evening, while watching the harvesters, I saw three new workers. Three emigrants—from somewhere—had joined the colonists. A total of fifteen, five of whom were youngsters, went into winter quarters,—a large, comfortable house, a goodly supply of food, and a location off the track of trappers. The cold, white days promised only peace. But an unpreventable catastrophe came before the winter was half over.

One night a high wind began to bombard the ice-bound lake with heavy blasts. The force of these intermittent gales suggested that the wind was trying to dislodge the entire ice covering of the lake; and indeed that very nearly happened.

Before the crisis came, I went to the lake, believing it to be the best place to witness the full effects of this most enthusiastic wind. Across the ice the gale boomed, roaring in the restraining forest beyond. These broken rushes set the ice vibrating and the water rolling and swelling beneath. During one of these blasts the swelling water burst the ice explosively upward in a fractured ridge entirely across the lake. In the next few minutes the entire surface broke up, and the wind began to drive the cakes upon the windward shore.

A large flatboat cake was swept against the beaver house, sheared it off on the water-line, and overturned the conelike top into the lake. The beaver took refuge in the tunnel which ran beneath the lake-bottom. This proved a death-trap, for its shore end above the water-line was clogged with ice. As the lake had swelled and surged beneath the beating of the wind, the water had gushed out and streamed back into the tunnel again and again, until ice formed in and closed the outer entrance. Against this ice four beaver were smothered or drowned. I surmised the tragedy but was helpless to prevent it. Meanwhile the others doubled back and took refuge upon the ruined stump of their home. From a clump of near-by pines I watched this wild drama.

Less than half an hour after the house was wrecked, these indomitable animals began to rebuild it. Lashed by icy waves, beaten by the wind, half-coated with ice, these home-loving people strove to rebuild their home. Mud was brought from the bottom of the pond and piled upon the shattered foundation. This mud set—froze—almost instantly on being placed. They worked desperately, and from time to time I caught sight of Flat-top. Toward evening it appeared possible that the house might be restored, but, just as darkness was falling, a roaring gust struck the lake and a great swell threw the new part into the water.

The colonists gave up the hopeless task and that night fled down the mountain. Two were killed before they had gone a quarter of a mile. Along the trail were three other red smears upon the crusted snow; each told of a death and a feast upon the wintry mountainside among the solemn pines. Flat-top with five others finally gained the Wind River Colony, from which he had led his emigrants two years before.

One day the following June, while examining the lilies in the lake, I came upon a low, freshly cut stump;—Flat-top had returned. A number of colonists were with him and all had come to stay.

All sizable aspen that were within a few yards of the water had been cut away, but at the southwest corner of the lake, about sixty feet from the shore, was an aspen thicket. Flat-top and his fellow workers cut a canal from the lake through a low, sedgy flat into this aspen thicket. The canal was straight, about fourteen inches deep and twenty-six inches wide. Its walls were smoothly cut and most of the excavated material was piled evenly on one side of the canal and about eight inches from it. It had an angular, mechanical appearance, and suggested the work not of a beaver, but of man, and that of a very careful man too.

Down this canal the colonists floated the timbers used in building their two houses. On the completion of the houses, the home-builders returned to the grove and procured winter supplies. In most cases the small aspen were floated to the pile between the houses with an adept skill, without severing the trunk or cutting off a single limb.

The colonists had a few years of ideal beaver life. One summer I came upon Flat-top and a few other beaver by the brook that drains the lake, and at a point about half a mile below its outlet. It was along this brook that Flat-top’s intrepid ancestors had painfully climbed to establish the first settlement in the lake. Commonly each summer several beaver descended the mountain and spent a few weeks of vacation along Wind River. Invariably they returned before the end of August; and autumn harvest-gathering usually began shortly after their return.