A SMOKY ATMOSPHERE 133 



passable from a dense growth of little stunted tirs, 

 alders and cedars. 



Going around the right-hand edge of this jungle and 

 " spotting " in among the big trees, I made a discovery 

 that astonished me very much. This open cleared 

 space was an old and now abandoned beaver meadow. 

 The beavers had not used it for a score of years at 

 least, and the beaver dam at the bottom was, of course, 

 badly broken down. 



Walking over this dam I was once more astonished 

 to find another beaver meadow and beyond the dam 

 for that one, still another meadow, making a series of 

 three meadows with their three dams that these won- 

 derful animals had laboriously constructed. 



It is just possible that the subterranean exploits of 

 the little brook were really caused by these busy work- 

 ers in tunneling under its bed for some reason or other. 

 I cannot account for the phenomena upon any other 

 hypothesis. 



Below the last of the beaver dams the stream broad- 

 ened out considerably, and I took a road which seemed 

 to follow it in parallel lines. Whether it does or not 

 I'll not know until another season's exploration ex- 

 plains the mystery of finding myself at last at a 

 quarter past two in the afternoon at Cuxabexis Cove, 

 six miles at least from the foot of " Our Lake." 



Chesuncook Lake, into which this cove drains, is, 

 during the winter and spring, raised by moans of a 



