of 



been cut. It may be that the beaver which 

 felled them looked and thought before they 

 went ahead with the cutting. 



Why had this and several other large aspens 

 been left uncut in a place where all were con- 

 venient for harvest? All other neighboring 

 aspens were cut years ago. One explanation is 

 that the beaver realized that the tops of the 

 aspens were entangled and interlocked in the 

 limbs of crowding spruces and would not fall if 

 cut off at the bottom. This and one other were 

 the only large ones that were felled, and the 

 tops of these had been recently released by the 

 overturning of some spruces and the breaking of 

 several branches on others. Other scattered 

 large aspens were left uncut, but all of these 

 were clasped in the arms of near-by spruces. 



It was the habit of these colonists to transfer 

 a tree to the harvest pile promptly after cutting 

 it down. But one morning I found logs on slides 

 and in canals, and unfinished work in the grove, 

 as though everything had been suddenly dropped 

 in the night when work was at its height. Coy- 

 otes had howled freely during the night, but 



60 



