368 THE TRAPPER. 



log newly cut. Now he must proceed with caution, read- 

 ing the sign as he goes along, and be careful not to come 

 suddenly upon the camp and disturb its inmates. Soon 

 the woods present the appearance of a newly-thinned plan- 

 tation in an English park ; well-beaten paths, worn hard 

 and smooth with constant hauling, may be seen leading 

 down to the water's edge ; stumps of trees that have been 

 cut down and worked up by the beavers many years ago, 

 side by side with others that have been felled and carried 

 off quite recently, meet the eye on every side. Perhaps a 

 white birch or popple, a foot in diameter, gnawed all round 

 and surrounded with fresh chips, testifies to last night's 

 work ; so also do logs as thick as a man's arm, and 4 or 5 

 feet in length, cut and ready to haul to the storehouse for 

 winter use. (I am supposing it to be the " fall " of the 

 year.) Follow one of these paths down a few yards and 

 you will see a pond one of several each perhaps half an 

 acre in extent and overshadowed by the forest ; pine, fir, 

 spruce, birch, maple, poplar, alder, and willow growing 

 down to the water's edge, and the two latter beyond. 

 Fallen trees with the bark peeled off, lie half submerged ; 

 their boughs lopped off level with the surface of the water. 

 On a shallow spot near the centre of the pond, surrounded 

 by deep water, often near the stump of an old pine tree, 

 stands the house, presenting the appearance from a little 

 distance of a beehive-shaped mound of mud and sticks, 

 and not at all like the trim, smooth, and shapely edifices I 

 have seen depicted in ' Homes without Hands ' and else- 

 where. With all these signs of life and labour on every 

 side one is astonished at the perfect stillness that reigns 

 all around, broken only by the monotonous sound of the 



