BEAVERS—THEIR WAYS. 69 
custody, they immediately thereafter ‘‘skipped the 
country.” The circumstance of the case as presented 
in justice court while somewhat disappointing in the 
manner conducted—had its good result in giving peace 
and security to the beavers for the balance of the win- 
ter months. 
To refute or verify the rumors concerning the beavers 
of Painted Woods Lake, in company with a select party 
of picnickers, in which our special photographer—as 
usual on such trips—had a general superintendency of 
the same,.we hied out of the county capital behind some 
spirited nags on a bright October Sunday, 1903, and 
within an hour from the time of starting drew up reins 
‘in front of the portico of Shulteen’s Lakeside home- 
stead, where we alighted as the point of general rendez- 
vous. Accompaning the photographer with his tripod 
and camera, we passed along the lake shore for a dis- 
tance of two hundred yards where a new beaver house 
was sighted. It was rebuilt from the small one used 
the previous year—the feed bed while much enlarged— 
occupying the same position. It was to this point the 
beavers had come after being scared away by would 
be trappers from the embelished beaver house on the 
Wing quarter about one mile east of the present site. 
At their new quarters preparations were being made 
for some extreme cold the winter to follow judging by 
the arrangement of feed bed, and the double coat of 
mud with which they had replastered their house. The 
neglect of their feed bed—or rather their tardiness as 
to the storing of their winter provender, although then 
entering the last week in October—made it evident to 
