COASTING 5 



shining in the sun. Climbing down to them I 

 walked across the main pond. A large house, 

 recently plastered, thrust up five feet through 

 the ice. The four or five inches of mud and small 

 sticks on the outside of the house were frozen as 

 solid as stone. There was no sign that any ani- 

 mal had tried to break in through this covering. 

 Near by a green brush heap stuck up through 

 the ice. This brush pile, made up perhaps of 

 two hundred small aspen trees, was the winter 

 food supply. It rested on the bottom of the 

 pond was canned in the water. A beaver 

 under the ice easily drags one of these green sticks 

 from the food pile to his house entrance, also 

 on the bottom of the pond, and then up to the 

 floor of the house which is just above waterline. 

 Rabbits hopped about in the shadows eating 

 willow bark, but no other animals were in sight. 



A climb of about a thousand feet above the 

 beaver colony, through a dense, tall spruce for- 

 est, brought me to timberline. This timberline 

 was a stretch of forest less than three feet high 

 which appeared to have stood here as long as 

 the peaks themselves. That each of these 

 ancient-looking trees was hundreds of years 

 old is certain. Farther along the timberline the 

 trees lay upon the ground as though they had 

 been flattened out by a steam roller. A few of 

 these were about one foot in diameter and 



