A LITTLE BEAVER 161 



and when cardinal-flowers and ripened water- 

 maples kindle rival flames on the inner border of 

 the marsh, the winter dwelling of the muskrat is 

 builded unseen in the darkness. Night by night 

 grows the dome of fresh green rushes, broad- 

 leaved flags, angular-stalked sedges; and it is 

 hardly noticeable among the green, rank standing 

 plants until the thatch has grown dun with curing. 

 Swift-winged teal alight there, and the great dusky 

 ducks climb to the housetop for outlook over the 

 marsh, but rarely except at night is the owner to 

 be seen. He is both lake-dweller and cave-dweller, 

 and between his two unlike habitations communi- 

 cation is had by a hidden path in the tangle of 

 weeds, a pitfall for the unwary wader of the marsh. 

 With the completion of the house, a new danger 

 threatens the builders and their young family. 



The mink and the owl have harassed the nightly 

 labors and waylaid the lop-eared youngsters who 

 made short excursions from the paternal roof; 

 but now of a dew-silvered morning a knotted wisp 

 of sedge or rushes or a patch of birch bark calls 

 your attention to a "tally-stick," which secures a 

 cruel trap. This has been set perhaps in the crumb- 

 littered feed-bed outside the house, or even in the 

 darkness of the inner chamber, to which the trapper 

 has gained access by removing a bit of the wall, 

 now neatly replaced. 



Only spendthrift trappers follow this wasteful 



