Yellow Thunder, Our Little Indian Cousin

by Mary Hazelton Blanchard Wade

Not many miles up the river above Yellow Thunder's home, beavers are hunted. Black Cloud likes to catch them, because their flesh is good to eat, and the skin is covered with fine fur. Last winter he allowed his son to go with himself and a party of men to hunt for this clever little creature.

Yellow Thunder believes that the beavers were once people and able to speak like himself. But they were too wise, so the Great Spirit took away this power and changed them into these animals.

I wonder if you have ever seen a beaver's house. He usually makes it of the young wood of birch or pine trees, and builds it a short way out in the river, so that it is surrounded by water. He shows a great deal of skill in making his home. It has a roof shaped like a dome. It reaches three or four feet above the surface of the water.

There are generally only two young beavers in the family. The first year they live with their parents. The second year they have a room built next to the main house for their special use. By this time they are old enough to help their father and mother get food. They eat great quantities of roots and wood, but they like the wood of the birch and poplar trees best of all.

When the young beavers are two years old, they leave their old home, and choose a new place in which to build houses for themselves. Once in a great while, hunters find beavers that the Indians call "old bachelors." This is because they live alone, build no houses, but make their homes in holes they find, or dig out for themselves.

The beaver always makes holes in the banks of the river near his house. The entrance to such a hole is below the surface of the water, so that if the beaver is attacked in his house, he can flee for safety to his hiding-place in the bank.

Now let us return to Yellow Thunder and his beaver hunt. It was a bitter cold day and the river was frozen over in some places, but that would be so much the better if the hunters hoped to secure their game. They journeyed by the riverside for several miles. There was a heavy fall of snow, but they moved along quickly with the help of their snowshoes, till one of the men whispered: "I see it. Stop!"

Sure enough! A few feet away from them and from the bank rose the roof of a dam above the ice. One of the men tried the ice and found it was thick enough to bear them.

Yellow Thunder was told to remain where he was on the bank, while the rest of the party took heavy tools in their hands and went over to the beavers' house. They quickly destroyed it. But the beavers? What had become of them? They did not stay in their house to have it broken down over their heads. They were too wise. When the first alarm was given, they hurried through the water, under the icy covering of the river, to a hiding-place in the bank. They had made it long ago to be ready in case of danger.