STORY OF THE RAT AND BEAVER. 167 



tained a determined silence. I inquired the 

 reason of this reverential demeanour ; when 

 Maufelly, after some hesitation, with a face of 

 great seriousness, informed us, that the small 

 island we were passing was called the Rat's 

 Lodge, from an enormous musk rat which once 

 inhabited it. " But what you see there," said 

 he, pointing to a rock on the opposite shore, 

 with a conical summit, " that is the Beaver's 

 Lodge ; and lucky shall we be if we are not 

 visited with a gale of wind, or something worse. 

 The chief would perhaps laugh at the story 

 which our old men tell, and we believe, about 

 that spot." He then proceeded to narrate, with 

 great earnestness and solemnity of manner, a 

 traditionary tale, which, as illustrative of Indian 

 notions, may not be uninteresting to the reader. 

 It was in substance as follows : " In that lodge 

 there dwelt, in ancient times, a beaver as large as a 

 buffalo ; and, as it committed great depredations, 

 sometimes alone, and sometimes with the aid of 

 its neighbour the rat, whom it had enticed into 

 a league, the bordering tribes, who suffered from 

 these marauding expeditions, resolved upon its 

 destruction. Accordingly, having consulted to- 

 gether on the best mode of executing their 

 design, and arranged a combined attack ; not 

 however, unknown to the wary beaver, which, it 

 seems, had a spy in the enemy's quarters. They 



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