48 WATCHED BY WILD ANIMALS 



gnawed down a number of aspens that had es- 

 caped the fire. These were in a grove several 

 hundred feet down stream from the pond. A 

 few nights later they commenced to drag the 

 felled aspens up stream into their pond. This 

 was difficult work, for midway between the 

 grove and the pond was a waterfall. The beaver 

 had to drag each aspen out of the water and up 

 a steep bank and make a portage around the 

 falls. 



The second night of this up-stream transpor- 

 tation a mountain lion had lain in wait by the 

 falls. Tracks and marks on the muddy slope 

 showed that he had made an unsuccessful leap 

 for two beavers on the portage. The following 

 morning an aspen of eighty pounds' weight 

 which two beavers had evidently been dragging 

 was lying on the slope. The lion had not only 

 missed, but on the muddy slope he slipped and 

 received a ducking in the deep water-hole below. 



Transportation up stream was stopped. The 

 remainder of the felled aspens were piled into a 

 near-by " safety pond. " A shallow stream which 

 beavers use for a thoroughfare commonly has in 

 it a safety pond which they maintain as a har- 

 bour, diving into it in case of attack. Usually 

 winter food is stored within a few feet of the 

 house, but in this case it was nearly six hundred 

 feet away. In storing it in the safety pond, the 



