CHAPTER III. 
AmatreuR TRAPPER AMONG THE BEAVERS AND SOME 
LATENT IMPRESSIONS THEREON—REINFORCED 
BY A VETERAN—RESULT— REFLECTIONS. 
N noting beaver sign my first indented impressions 
were received along Little Sioux River, Northwest- 
ern Iowa, in the autumn of 1863, while a member of 
Col. Jim Sawyer’s Independent Cavalry Batallion. But 
few dams and no lodges were found on the main stream 
south from the settlement at Cherokee. This marked 
the much hunted and trapped era where the remaining 
beaver were unable to maintain family groups but were 
compelled to eke out a miserable existence in obscure 
holes along the banks of the stream. In such cases 
the ‘‘sign’’ could be observed only by the practised 
trapper or fur hunter. In places north of Cherokee, 
more especially the tributary streams, both dams and 
lodges were frequently met with. Two years later— 
being the autumn of 1865—in company with Trapper 
Comstock, we made autumn trap on Mill Creek, where 
we found elaborate beaver work, which I afterward 
carefully scrutinized and made note of. The first large 
dam nearly a mile long fronted the second basswood 
grove about four miles out from Cherokee, and the next 
dam was two miles above the first. Both showed evi- 
dence of the trapper’s cruel art and of broken families. 
Eight miles further up at a bur oak grove was the be- 
ginning of a series of dams extending along the creek 
about five miles. There were six or seven families of 
beavers within this circuit which included three forks or 
