106 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



Perhaps it was while taking the bark from this tree 

 that he first noticed the traces of beaver. Channels, 

 broader than runnels,, hardly as wide as a ditch, have 

 been cut connecting pool with pool, marsh with lake. 

 Here are runways through the grass, where beaver have 

 dragged young saplings five times their own length 

 to a winter storehouse near the dam. Trees lie felled 

 miles away from any chopper. Chips are scattered 

 about marked by teeth which the trapper knows 

 knows, perhaps, from having seen his dog s tail taken 

 off at a nip, or his own finger amputated almost before 

 he felt it. If the bark of a tree has been nibbled around, 

 like the line a chopper might make before cutting, the 

 trapper guesses whether his coming has not interrupted 

 a beaver in the very act. 



All these are signs which spell out the presence of 

 a beaver-dam within one night s travelling distance; 

 for the timid beaver frequently works at night, and will 

 not go so far away that forage cannot be brought in 

 before daylight. In which of the hundred water-ways 

 in the labyrinth of pond and stream where beavers 

 roam is this particular family to be found? 



Kcalizing that his own life depends on the life of 

 the game, no true trapper will destroy wild creatures 

 when the mothers are caring for their young. Besides, 

 furs are not at their prime when birch-bark is peeled, 

 and the trapper notes the place, so that he may come 

 back when the fall hunt begins. Beaver kittens stay 

 under the parental roof for three years, but at the end 

 of the first summer are amply able to look after their 

 own skins. Free from nursery duties, the old ones can 

 now use all the ingenuity and craft which nature gave 

 them for self-protection. When cold weather comes 



