After my return to the city, Bige reported from time to time, making visits to the beaver house, seeing beaver swimming under the ice, carrying sticks from the wood pile into the tunnel leading to the house; also later, beaver bringing peeled sticks out of the house and placing them in a very orderly manner on another pile. Reports also reached me of beaver under the ice digging pond lily roots and carrying them into the house.
In the following April after the ice in the pond had broken up, the beavers came out of their winter home and brought with them six young beaver puppies. The father beaver with the white head now went away on his summer exploration trip. We later learned that it was the habit of all male beavers to wander far from home during the summer months. The mother remained at the pond and took care of her six young ones; but with them she moved into the burrow in the bank where we had first seen the old male beaver go to hide.
Many times during the summer we saw the young beavers sunning themselves on the bank or playing in the water near the shore. The mother was always somewhere near, and invariably sounded a warning by pounding the water with her broad tail, whereupon the youngsters would scamper for cover and each would precede his dive by slapping the water with his little ladle-like tail, in feeble imitation of the mother.
One day in June a hawk swooped down, grabbed one of the young beavers and carried him away. Later, a pekan, sometimes called a fisher, killed another one. Apparently the mother scared him off. We found the dead baby beaver, and tracks in the mud gave us the name of his murderer.
The Pekan
Early in July of that summer, while on a fishing trip to Wolf Pond, six miles to the east, Bige and I met our white-headed beaver friend. A slap on the water and a shower of spray informed us that we were recognized. It also spoiled our fishing for at least half an hour.
Toward the end of the same month we met him at the mouth of West Bay Brook on Cedar Lake. This was nine miles west of his home and fully fifteen miles from Wolf Pond, where we last saw him.
In the third week in August we again saw our beaver with a white cap. This time on Pine Brook where he was assisting two other beavers (possibly a brother and sister of his,) in building a dam across the brook. We were fortunate in being able to conceal ourselves, and for a time watched operations. Apparently, our friend was bossing the job and directing the operations of the other two. It seemed that his ability as an engineer was recognized in beaver world, and he therefore had been called in to supervise a difficult undertaking. Thereafter we called him the Chief Engineer, and he many times proved his right to the title.
In September the Chief Engineer returned to his home at Cherry Pond, and there followed a season of great activity among the beavers. Some of their work we were privileged to see in progress, all of it we saw after completion. The young beavers were now about one third the size of their parents, but they all worked.