"When was that, Hugh?" asked Jack.
"Why," said Hugh, "that was in '67 or '68, I think. It was just after the railroad had passed through Eastern Nebraska."
By this time supper was over and the dishes washed, and though Hugh and Jack were tired it hardly seemed time to go to bed.
"I wish, Hugh," said Jack, "that you would tell me something about what we saw to-day, and something more about the way the beavers live."
"Sure", said Hugh; "I'll tell you all I know, but that is not much yet, as far as what we saw to-day goes. We found a dam and some houses, where, I am sure, there are quite a number of beaver, maybe twenty-five or thirty, and maybe more, and from what we saw, I am pretty sure that they are gentle and unsuspicious. We ought to be able to get some of them, but until we've looked about more I can't tell much. What I think we'd better do is spend a day or two more prospecting, especially on this side of the creek, and then we'll move camp according to what we see, and then go to work to set some traps. You saw enough to-day to get some idea of how the beaver live. You saw an old dam and a new one, and you saw some houses. Did you ever see a muskrat house back East?"
"Yes," said Jack, "I've seen a good many."
"Did you ever see one opened?" asked Hugh.
"No. I never did," said Jack.
"Well, now, a muskrat and a beaver are pretty close relations, I take it. They live in much the same way, and build houses that are a good deal alike. Of course, a muskrat doesn't build dams, and a muskrat's tail is flattened from side to side, while the beaver's tail is flattened from above downward, but in many ways they are a good deal alike. They both live in their houses during the winter, and if they're driven from their houses they swim under the water to some place where there's an air-hole in the ice and where they can put up their noses to breathe. Of course, both beaver and muskrat must have air. A muskrat builds his house by heaping up mud and reeds and grass in a shallow pond at a distance from the bank. The beaver builds his by heaping up the same sort of stuff, only bigger, that is to say, sticks and brush and mud in a shallow pond away from the bank. Each sort of house has in it one or more rooms with a kind of a bench all round the walls where the animals sit or sleep, and with a hole somewhere near the middle of the floor leading down through the bottom of the house and out into the open water. I have seen beaver houses opened. Generally, they have only one big room, but sometimes a big house will have two or three rooms in it, and each room has a separate passage out into the water. I think that perhaps several families take part in building such a big house as that, and each family has its separate home.
"Beaver, you know, don't always live in houses. There's a kind that people call bank beaver, and they just dig a hole in the bank under water, which slopes up a little and finally gets above the level of the water, and there they dig out quite a good-sized room not so very far under ground. These bank beaver live for the most part in rivers or in natural lakes, and as a rule they don't build any dams. They are just like any other beaver, but I expect they live in the way that is handiest to them."