was neither mark nor blemish by which I could 

 positively identify him. Yet I feel that in my 

 month around the colony I beheld the patriarch 

 of the first evening in several scenes of action. 



Sixty-seven minutes after the second beaver 

 began cutting he made a brief pause ; then he 

 suddenly thudded the ground with his tail, hur- 

 riedly took out a few more chips, and ran away, 

 with the other two beaver a little in advance, just 

 as his four-inch aspen settled over and fell. All 

 paused for a time close to the hole beneath me, 

 and then the old beaver returned to his work. 

 The one that had felled his tree followed closely 

 and at once began on another aspen. The other 

 beaver, with his aspen half cut off, went into the 

 hole and did not again come out. By and by an 

 old and a young beaver came out of the hole. 

 The young one at once began cutting limbs off 

 the recently felled aspen, while the other began 

 work on the half-cut tree ; but he ignored the work 

 already done, and finally severed the trunk about 

 four inches above the cut made by the other. 

 Suddenly the old beaver whacked the ground 

 and ran, but at thirty feet distant he paused and 



96 



