a 
58 BEAVERS—THEIR WAYS. 
It was in the years 1888 and 1889, that places down 
on the lower Missouri and lower Mississippi Rivers which 
had not been visited by ‘‘beaver sign’’ for full fifty years 
and without heralding their coming, gave evidence of 
their presence by the fresh waterway slide, the peeled 
sticks and the newly dug holes along cut banks of the 
swift moving waters. Even out on the Atlantic seaboard, 
around the coasts of Florida and the Carolinas, beaver 
voyagers from the far off Upper Missouri country 
had skirted the coasts, until the inlet to some fresh water 
river gave them a chance to satisfy their curiosity as well 
as use their judgment as to the proper place to rest 
from their long journey and build themselves a home— 
where, if they could not escape from their vicious ene- 
my—man, they would at least escape his vengeance by 
his ignorance of their presence,or artlessness as to their 
ways. This would give them time to build homes and 
bring forth their young before their persecutors knew 
of their proximity, or finding out, became familiar with 
their habits. For in the poor beaver’s case—familiarity 
breeds danger—not contempt. 
Beavers naturally being attached to their homes—the 
stress as to their very existence on this earth must have 
impelled them forward seeking the unknown. The 
dangers had so multiplied by the persistence of their 
avaricious enemies who sought their lives for the fur 
covering their Creator had given them at birth. What 
guiding hand piloted the way from the base of the 
Rocky Mountains to Albemarle Sound? Yet unlike the 
hegira of the feathered Magpie about the same time 
from the same regions and for the same cause, viz: 
the preservation of their kind—they did not all move 
