THE TAKING OF THE BEAVER 193 



which nature gave them for self-protection. When cold weather 

 comes the beaver is fair game to the trapper. It is wit against 

 wit. To be sure, the man has superior strength, a gun, and a 

 treacherous thing called a trap. But his eyes are not equal to the 

 beaver's nose. And he hasn't that familiarity with the woods 

 to enable him to pursue, which the beaver has to enable it to escape. 

 And he can't swim long enough under water to throw enemies off 

 the scent, the way the beaver does. 



Now, as he paddles along the network of streams which interlace 

 Northern forests, he will hardly be likely to stumble on the beaver- 

 dam of last summer. Beavers do not build their houses where 

 passers-by will stumble upon them. But all the streams have been 

 swollen by fall rains ; and the trapper notices the markings on 

 every chip and pole floating down the full current. A chip swirls 

 past white and fresh cut. He knows that the rains have floated it 

 over the beaver-dam. Beavers never cut below their houses, but 

 always above, so that the current will carry the poles downstream 

 to the dam. 



Leaving his canoe-load behind, the trapper guardedly advances 

 within sight of the dam. If any old beaver sentinel be swimming 

 about, he quickly scents the man-smell, upends and dives with a 

 spanking blow of his trowel tail on the water, which heliographs 

 danger to the whole community. He swims with his webbed hind 

 feet, the little fore paws being used as carriers or hanging limply, 

 the flat tail acting the faintest bit in the world like a rudder ; but 

 that is a mooted question. The only definitely ascertained function 

 of that bat-shaped appendage is to telegraph danger to comrades. 

 The beaver neither carries things on his tail, nor plasters houses 

 with it ; for the simple reason that the joints of his caudal appurte- 

 nance admit of only slight sidelong wigglings and a forward sweep 

 between his hind legs, as if he might use it as a tray for food while 

 he sat back spooning up mouthfuls with his fore paws. 



Having found the wattled homes of the beaver, the trapper may 

 proceed in different ways. He may, after the fashion of the Indian 



