BEAVERS—THEIR WAYS. 21 
After my partner—Comstock—had selected our camp 
in the bur oak grove, he descried two other trappers with 
ateam of oxen encamped further up the creek but, who, 
not expecting any rivalry in such an out-of-the-way 
place had neglected to put out their traps until the 
ground was occupied and beaver dams and- runaways 
covered by their more active rivals for choice grounds. 
These young fellows were the Phipps brothers from the 
village at Cherokee. They took their disappointment 
good naturedly, and said they would return down to the 
lower dams where they could attend to the trapping from 
their home as they had often done before. Comstock, 
lately wedded, found more felicity in anticipation at his 
home down at Correctionville on the Sioux, than his 
net proceeds from the trap line,—‘‘dug out’’ for his 
martial quarters, but not before signing up and setting 
out all the traps, and giving some practical instructions 
to the writer as to their attendance during his absence. 
On the first evening of my lonely vigil, I could but 
note the teeming life around the dams about me, and 
all from the generosity-of the peaceable proprietors who 
made room for their ‘‘summer boarders’’ or trancients 
and felt happy that their accomodations were so ample 
and well arranged. There was no rent to pay or board 
bills to liquidate. No notice of ejection to serve. 
There I sat in the doorway—representative of a su- 
perior animal—man—who looks to a just God for mer- 
cy and arrogates to himself as exclusively of God’s 
favor as to a future life. No place beyond our realm 
in place or preparation for the coming of those savants 
of the waterfall. These meek and lowly beasts are not 
even to be born again sayeth the pulpit teacher in human 
