Watched by Wild Animals

by Enos A. Mills

The fire had killed a number of tall spruces on the edge of the pond, and their tall half-burned mats swayed threateningly in the wind. One night two of the dead spruces were hurled into the pond. The smaller one had fallen across a housetop, but the house was thick-walled and, being frozen, had sustained the shock which broke the spruce into sections. The other fallen tree fell so heavily upon two of the houses that they were crushed like shells. At least four beavers were killed and a number injured.

Spring came early, and the colonists were no doubt glad to welcome it. The pond, during May and June, was a beautiful place. Grass and wild flowers brightened the shore, and the tips of the spruces were thick with dainty bloom. Deer came up from the lowlands and wild sheep came down from the heights. The woods and willows were filled with happy mating birds. The ousel built and sang by the falls near which it had wintered. Wrens, saucy as ever, and quiet bluebirds and numbers of wise and watchful magpies were about. The Clarke crows maintained their noisy reputation, and the robins were robins still.

One May morning I concealed myself behind a log by the pond, within twenty feet of the largest beaver house. I hoped to see the young beavers. My crawling behind a log was too much for a robin, and she raised such an ado concerning a concealed monster that other birds came to join in the hubbub and to help drive me away. But I did not move, and after two or three minutes of riot the birds took themselves off to their respective nesting-sites.

Presently a brown nose appeared between the house and my hiding place. As a mother beaver climbed upon one of the spruce logs thrust out of the water, her reflection in the water mingled with spruces and the white clouds in the blue field above. She commenced to dress her fur—to make her toilet. After preliminary scratching and clawing with a hind foot, she rose and combed with foreclaws; a part of the time with both forepaws at once. Occasionally she scratched with the double nail on the second toe of the hind foot. It is only by persistent bathing, combing, and cleaning that beavers resist the numerous parasites which thick fur and stuffy, crowded houses encourage.

A few mornings later the baby beavers appeared. The mother attracted my attention with some make-believe repairs on the farther end of the dam, and the five youngsters emerged from the house through the water and squatted on the side of the house before I saw them. For a minute all sat motionless. By and by one climbed out on a projecting stick and tumbled into the water. The others showed no surprise at this accident.

The one in the water did not mind but swam outward where he was caught in the current that started to carry him over the dam. At this stage his mother appeared. She simply rose beneath him. He accepted the opportunity and squatted upon her back with that expressionless face which beavers carry most of the time. There are occasions, however, on which beavers show expression of fear, surprise, eagerness, and even intense pleasure. The youngster sat on his mother’s back as though asleep while she swam with him to the house. Here he climbed off in a matter-of-fact way, as though a ride on a ferry-boat was nothing new to him.

A few weeks later the mother robin who had become so wrought up over my hiding had times of dreadful excitement concerning the safety of her children. If anything out of the usual occurs, the robin insists that the worst possible is about to happen. This season the mother robin had nested upon the top of the beaver house. This was one of the safest of places, but so many things occurred to frighten her that it is a wonder she did not die of heart disease. The young robins were becoming restless at the time the young beavers were active. Every morning, when on the outside of the beaver house each young beaver started in turn as though to climb to the top, poor Mother Robin became almost hysterical. At last, despite all her fears, her entire brood was brought safely off.

During the summer, a majority of the Broken Tree beavers abandoned the colony and moved to other scenes. A number built a half-mile down stream, while the others, with one exception, travelled to an abandoned beaver colony on the first stream to the north. Overland this place was only half a mile from the Broken Tree, but by water route, down stream to the forks then up the other stream to the colony, the distance was three miles. This was an excellent place to live, and with but little repair an old abandoned dam was made better than a new one. All summer a lone beaver of this colony rambled about. Once he returned to the Broken Tree colony. Finally, he cast his lot with the long-established colony several miles down stream.

Late this summer a huge landslide occurred on the stream above the Broken Tree pond. The slide material blocked the channel and formed a large, deep pond. From this dam of débris and the torn slope from which it slipped came such quantities of sediment that it appeared as though the pond might be filled. Every remaining colonist worked day and night to build a dam on the stream just above their pond. They worked like beavers. This new pond caught and stopped the sediment. It was apparently built for this purpose.

The colonists who remained repaired only two of the five houses, and between these they piled green aspen and willow for winter food. But before a tree was cut they built a dam to the north of their home. Water for this was obtained by a ditch or canal dug from the stream at a point above the sediment-catching pond. When the new pond was full, a low grassy ridge about twenty feet across separated it from the old one. A canal about three feet wide and from one to two feet deep was cut through the ridge, to connect the two ponds. The aspens harvested were taken from the slope of a moraine beyond the north shore of the new pond. The canal and the new pond greatly shortened the land distance over which the trees had to be dragged, and this made harvesting safer, speedier, and easier.