A BEAVER DAM. 205 



tion, and that was to back straight out the way we had en- 

 tered. Our boatmaii changed his position to the bow of the 

 boat, and after much labor and exertion, we started down 

 stream. After two hours of hard work, pushing with the 

 oars and pulling by the branches, we emerged into daylight, 

 came out into the open stream, not a little fatigued by our 

 efforts to find the imaginary pond at the base of the moun- 

 tains. 



This stream, with the broad alder marsh that stretches 

 away on either side, was doubtless once a beaver dam ; and 

 we thought we could discover where these singular and saga- 

 cious animals had erected the structure that made for them 

 an artificial lake. Our theory on this subject may have been 

 true or false, but this much is a fact, that in all this region 

 of lakes and rivers, I have seen no alder or other marsh of 

 any considerable extent, save this. In the times of old, 

 when the Indian and his brother the beaver, lived quietly 

 together, before the greed of the white man had built up a 

 war of extermination between them, this must have been a 

 glorious country for the beaver. The lakes are so numerous 

 and the ponds and rivers so fitted for them, that they must 

 have had a good time of it here for centuries. The Indians 

 never disturbed them, never made war upon them ; their 

 flesh was not needed or fitted for food, and the value of 

 their fur was unknown. Tradition, speaking from the dim 

 and shadowy past, tells us of the vast numbers of these 

 sagacious and harmless animals which congregated in -these 



