22 BEAVERS—THEIR WAYS. 
mould—even though their strange and mysterious gifts 
of prophecy border the divine. 
There I sat—a self satisfied Clovenfoot in sulpher 
fumes; a Nero fiddling while Rome was burning; aChiv- 
ington gloating over the sacrifice of babes and women! 
For what? 
A few paltry dollars that could have been much easier 
earned in any other legitimate way. 
The excuse. If I did not kill them for their fur cov- 
ering, somebody else would. This was true enough as 
far as the text governed the situation in the case, as 
we were the third party that had sought these grounds 
within a few days of each other. 
Each morning after,I took regular trips along the line 
of traps. Some of the traps disappeared which I could 
not account for. Others were found sprung with a 
peeled stick in it. Others with muskrats or ducks in 
them. Some were turned bottom side up. I could not 
account for these things. A novice at his wits end. 
By the time Comstock returned most of the beaver 
traps were out of action. I had spent three weeks 
laying siege to this thrifty settlement with a cordon of 
thirty Newhouse No. 4 traps, and took up the line in 
early December with seventeen traps ‘‘missing and un- 
accounted for.’’ The beavers had successfully parried 
these engines set for their destruction, and winter came 
upon them with their dams intact and feed bed well 
stored. But pitiful as its recital is, it was their last 
winter. Comstock had pledged himself ‘‘to get them 
beaver in the spring.’’ So when spring came a party 
was made up consisting of Comstock, a young German 
who afterward sailed under a non de plume in the big 
