STs ee 
= Ate API ERE Tis (Ne 
Sees 
ty Pe 
ieee = - 
ee age i, conn at Mie ory 
3 GO sore 
BEAVERS—THEIR WAYS. 45 
about in the same condition as the previous morning, 
viz: the tub emptied of its water but filled with peeled 
esticks, mud>and refuse. The beaver, .as before, sat 
humped up in his corner apparently oblivious to all his 
surroundings. Not being a reader of animal’s minds 
I were unable to divine what was revolving in the an- 
imal’s modest looking think tank, but came tolearn his 
thoughts later. 
Nothing was left me to do but to humor his Nibs and 
again clean the tub of rubbish and fill the same with 
clear water and furnish him with an extra supply of fine 
cottonwood tops and a dish of his favorite wild garlic, 
the latter he readily ate without waiting to make it his 
desert during regular meals. On my way over the 
third’morning I kept wondering what surprise his royal 
Nibs would treat me too, and found he was equal to 
any emergency in the furtherance of a sensation. The 
tub had been again emptied of its waterand filled with 
the usual mud, sticks and debris, suplimented with a 
quantity of beaver manure conspicuously placed on the 
the top of it all. 
‘‘-You scamp,’’ I said &loud as I looked over in the 
beaver’s corner, where a ‘‘dummy’’ of hay had been 
placed in his bed but the animal was nowhere to be 
seen. I looked around the dark corners and in his 
favorite play holes vainly for asight of him and until I 
came to inspect a saturated corner, with an aperture 
leading upward, half filled with hay from the beaver’s 
bed—as though to screen observation—I came to the 
uncomfortable conclusion that my charge had taken 
French leave—or in other words—had ‘‘vamoosed de 
ranche.’’ 
