116 THE STORY OF THE TRAPPER 



often the little beavers with poor fur are let go. If 

 the dog attempts to capture the frightened runaways 

 by catching at the conspicuous appendage to the rear, 

 that dog is likely to emerge from the struggle minus a 

 tail, while the beaver runs off with two. 



Trappers have curious experiences with beaver kit 

 tens which they take home as pets. When young they 

 are as easily domesticated as a cat, and become a nuis 

 ance with their love of fondling. But to them, as to 

 the hunter, comes what the Indians call &quot; the-sickness- 

 of-long-thinking,&quot; the gipsy yearning for the wilds. 

 Then extraordinary things happen. The beaver are apt 

 to avenge their comrades death. One old beaver trap 

 per of New Brunswick related that by June the beavers 

 became so restless, he feared their escape and put them 

 in cages. They bit their way out with absurd ease. 



He then tried log pens. They had eaten a hole 

 through in a night. Thinking to get wire caging, he 

 took them into his lodge, and they seemed contented 

 enough while he was about ; but one morning he 

 wakened to find a hole eaten through the door, and 

 the entire round of birch-bark, which he had staked 

 out ready for the gunwales and ribbing of his canoe 

 bark for which he had travelled forty miles chewed 

 into shreds. The beavers had then gone up-stream, 

 which is their habit in spring. 



