26 BEAVERS—THEIR WAYS. 
out further investigation. I made an estimate at this 
time that there were fully three thousand beavers on 
Knife River and tributary streams. This estimate was 
fully corroborated by the noted hunter Reynolds who 
in addition claimed it was the ‘‘greatest beaver stream 
of its size in the western country.” He reckoned the 
Cannon Ball River second on his list of beaver streams. 
Reynolds had traversed the Great Plains so many times 
that his judgment could be relied upon. 
The few years following witnessed the almost total 
destruction of these animals on this stream without being 
of any perceptible benefit to their destroyers but cer- 
tainly a great loss to the luxuriant vegetation that was 
everywhere in evidence along the entire length of Knife 
River Valley. The most wanton destruction of these 
beavers was committed by the ‘‘beaver shooters’’ a class 
of men with skiffs, rifles or shot guns and a plentiful sup- 
ply of fixed ammunition, who would deploy to the head 
of the stream during the spring break-up. When the 
floating ice and rising waters from melting snows were 
at their greatest height these worthies would put their 
skiff in the water, load in their camp dunnage and then 
seat themselves, cut loose and descend with the rapid 
current. At this stage of the water, the beavers were 
mostly flooded out, and were either perched upon the 
roofs of their houses or swimming under the banks 
near shore, and therefore an easy mark to the riflemen 
in the skiff. In this way hundreds of beavers would 
be killed along the stream by a single skiff party, and 
the bad feature of the whole business was, that even 
with the best marksmen, but one body in ten of the 
beavers killed would be recovered, and with poor marks- 
