total loss of the uncut food supply, when har- 

 vesting for winter had only begun. 



Would these energetic people starve at home 

 or would they try to find refuge in some other 

 colony? Would they endeavor to find a grove 

 that the fire had missed and there start anew? 

 The intense heat had consumed almost every 

 fibrous thing above the surface. The piles of 

 garnered green aspen were charred to the water- 

 line; all that remained of willow thickets and 

 aspen groves were thousands of blackened pick- 

 ets and points, acres of coarse charcoal stubble. 

 It was a dreary, starving outlook for my furred 

 friends. 



I left the scene to explore the entire burned 

 area. After wandering for hours amid ashes and 

 charcoal, seeing here and there the seared car- 

 cass of a deer or some other wild animal, I came 

 upon a beaver colony that had escaped the fire. 

 It was in the midst of several acres of swampy 

 ground that was covered with fire-resisting wil- 

 lows and aspens. The surrounding pine forest 

 was not dense and the heat it produced in burn- 

 ing did no damage to the scattered beaver houses. 



27 



