Jack the Young Trapper: An Eastern Boy's Fur Hunting in the Rocky Mountains

by George Bird Grinnell

"Your uncle tells me that there has been a whole lot of books written about those early trapping days, but I have never seen any of them. Of course, then it was all wild country and lots of things were happening, and a man had to keep his eyes open pretty wide. As I have told you, the Indian wars did not begin until long after that, and most of the trouble that we had with the Indians was with parties of wild young men, who had started off to war, and were anxious to get glory, and to go back to their villages and brag about what they had done. The fights were with these little parties and not with the tribes. But, at the same time, a bullet or an arrow from one of these little parties would kill a man just as dead as if he had been fighting with a tribe."

"That's all mighty interesting, Hugh," said Jack. "It seems to me that you never get through telling me interesting things about this country in the old times. I wish that I knew how to write, so that I could put it all down, and some day write a big book about your adventures."

"Well," said Hugh, "I'm mighty glad you can't do that. I reckon if I were to see you taking all these notes down in a notebook I wouldn't talk so much as I do."

"Well," said Jack, "if I knew how to write, you bet I'd write such a book. I sort of wonder that Uncle George has never done that. He spends a great deal of his time writing in winter, when he is back in New York."

"Well," Hugh went on, "let's go ahead about the beaver. You know that they build dams across streams to hold back the water, and that they build houses in the ponds that they make. Have you ever looked carefully at these dams?"

"No, I don't believe I have," Jack replied; "people have pointed them out to me, and they've shown me places along the streams where trees and brush had been cut down, and have said to me, 'that's beaver work,' and I have seen piles of sticks in the water and have been told that those were houses, but I never had any idea how any of this work was done."

"They build their dams across streams," said Hugh, "and hold back the water and often spread it over quite a wide space of the valley, and in this water they build their houses. I have always supposed that the ponds were made as a protection for the animals. You see, they are big and slow. They can't run away from anything that wants to kill them, and so the only means they have of getting away from their enemies is to dive down into the water and swim under it. Then their enemies, whether they are humans or animals, can't follow them. Of course, I have no more idea than you how the beaver got the idea of protecting themselves in this way, but I believe it is for protection they make these ponds, and for nothing else. You'll see that their houses are built out in pretty deep water, and when they are scared from shore they go out and get into their houses, and if somebody tries to pull down the houses where they live, then they can swim to the shore and hide there, with their noses just above water."

"Well," said Jack, "that's news to me. I always accepted the fact that they built dams to hold the water back, but I never had any idea why they did it."

"No," said Hugh, "I reckon not. I never heard anybody that did know why, but I am just giving you my idea. You'll hear a whole lot of stories about the wonderful things that beaver do, and in many of these stories there is not a grain of truth, but they do wonderful things enough as it is. You don't have to lie about them to make them out mighty smart animals."

"Yes," replied Jack, "I have heard of some of these wonderful things. I think some of the books say that the beaver can cut down a tree so that it will fall exactly where they want it to lie, just as a lumber-man in the woods will fell a tree where he wants it to lie. They say that when the beaver want to build a new dam they look along the stream until they find a place where there is a tree of just the right length, and then they fell it across the stream for a foundation for their dam."