“Is there any truth in the story, Nichols, that the beaver uses his tail to build his dam?”
“No! no!” replied the guide, as laying the animal across his lap he commenced to rob him of his “jacket.” “No beaver do that. He use tail to make noise to other beavers. It slap on water, make sound like pistol, and give alarm. Beaver push mud and stones from bed of river with front feet to make dam, and when build house walk up straight on hind feet, and hold to breast sticks and stones with front feet. No one hunt beaver who tell such stories.”
The animal was soon dressed and stewed for our breakfast. Its taste was similar to that of corn beef, but of a much more delicate flavor, the liver being reserved as a choice dish for the next meal. The tail was one mass of solid fat, which only the Indian, after toasting it before the fire, could digest. The skin was stretched on a hoop four feet in diameter laced with strips of cedar bark, a shingle of wood being used in spreading the skin of the tail.
“Me no like this,” said the Indian, arising after the completion of his work. “In my tribe, brave trap beaver; squaw dress him.”
“Which is a much superior way,” observed the Colonel. “Thus all the world over the gallant brave saddles upon the poor woman the undaintiful share of the work. A great pity, Nichols, that circumstances in your life have abolished the custom, as far as you are concerned.”
“Me think so; yes,” replied the Indian, with just the faintest idea of what the Colonel meant; and as he turned to wash the grease and blood from his warrior hands he looked the picture of dignity dethroned.
After a few days tarry we pushed on across Logan Pond, made half a mile carry to Beaver Pond, and camped on Osgood Carry at the head of the last water.
“What do you find so interesting?” I inquired of the Colonel, as I saw him examining minutely the side of an old tree not far from the tents.
“Oh! nothing special, except a record I made last year regarding the ‘Pioneers of the Aroostook,’ which the winter storms have failed to obliterate.”
“Then, before we go, we had better leave some relic of this tour,” I said.