“Do deer get up here too?”
“Not so many. They like the lower hills; but there’s mountain sheep a-plenty among them rocks. Wall, I reckon we’d better be movin’.”
He rose as he spoke and began the descent, winding by an easy way of his own choosing down into the canyon. They had gone a mile perhaps, when they emerged from a thick pine grove upon a small mountain lake.
It was a picture framed with pine-trimmed crags, a double picture, indeed; for the water, crystal clear, had mirrored sky, crags, trees, and hedgy banks so perfectly that one could scarce tell substance from shadow. Fred was ready to shout his joy at sight of it.
“Quiet now,” cautioned his guide, half divining the boy’s impulse; “beaver are ticklish. We’ll hev to step keerful if we get a glimpse o’ ’em. Here, Tobe, you and Buck stay back while we do some prospectin’.” He took off the bridle from the old horse to let him graze freely, and then led the way with Indian tread toward a rocky point that rose among the trees between them and an arm of the lake. Fred tried to imitate the cautious step. They stole up the slope. Gaining the crest, they peered over and looked upon the beaver-made bay—a rounded stretch of meadowy mountain lake in which the busy creatures had pitched their rustic lodges,—ragged, dome-shaped heaps of sticks, plastered and thatched with mud and grasses.
“The dam is over thar,” whispered Uncle Dave. “There comes one now towing a stick towards it.”
Fred looked at the V-shaped wave toward which his companion pointed, and saw the little brown animal. Then he saw others, old and young, at work and play. One sat atop his house making his dinner off some succulent root he had pulled; two others were industriously cutting down a sapling with their teeth. Some young ones were chasing one another about in the water. The boy, in eagerness to see them better, began to crawl up the cliff. In doing so he dislodged a stone, which tumbled with a rattle and splash into the lake. In a flash the beaver had dropped work and play and dived out of harm’s reach. A few seconds and there was no sign of life about the lodges but the plashy ripples dying one by one on the shores.
“You hev to be mighty still around them critters,” said Uncle Dave; “but I reckon you’ve seen enough; let’s go back and hev a bite to eat.”
“All right,” said Fred, and they retraced their steps to the old horse and dog. Here they untied their lunch from the saddle and sat down to eat and talk about the habits of the beaver.
“I b’lieve we’d better try another trail home,” said Uncle Dave; “mebbe we kin strike some big game if we rise a bit over this ridge to the south and strike down into the other canyon thar.”