CHAPTER XIII. 
DiscovertnG A Mysterious Braver CoLtony IN 
THE LittLte Missourt Bap Lanps. 
HE ruthless destruction of the remaining beaver 
colonies by Canadian half breed trappers and 
other outlaws along Big Muddy, milk River, Judith, the 
Musselshell, and other tributary streams of the Upper 
Missouri, above the mouth of the Yellowstone River in 
Montana—notwithstanding its beaver protection laws— 
caused another exodus of such of these that could es- 
cape their persecutors in the summer of 1901, similiar 
to that of 1898, although not so grand a move as the 
former owing to its disparity in numbers and that the 
distance being much shorter, as they commence to se- 
lecting new sites after passing White Earth River on 
their down stream course. As with the hegiraof 1898, 
their presence became manifest through a small colony 
transplanted here and there in places where beavers 
had once resided before being destroyed or driven out 
by trappers. 
In making their new homes the beavers endeavored 
to hide their sign as much as possible and they some- 
times lived a year or two in their new quarters before 
their presence would be discovered by the much dreaded 
man. In such cases they ignored the building of houses 
and eked out their existance in holes in the banks. But 
they had to eat, and the pealed sticks floating along 
the stream or a bunch of them laying as give-a-ways in 
