At the bottom of a deep valley, with 

 steep hills on either side, in the center of 

 a beaver meadow was a collection of a 

 score or more of conical shaped mud 

 huts, about two and a half feet high and 

 three feet in diameter at the base. In 

 each of these huts there lived a male 

 muskrat, his wife and family of seven 

 to nine children. There also were nu- 

 merous bachelor muskrats, who lived by 

 themselves in holes in the bank. 



Lest some of our readers may not be 

 acquainted with a "beaver meadow," let 

 us explain that at some period of time, 

 long ago, possibly two hundred or maybe 

 five hundred years ago, beavers lived 

 here and built a dam across the brook 

 as all beavers do. The dam backed the 

 waters of the brook up and flooded the 

 floor of the valley, thus drowning all the 

 trees which were not cut and peeled by 

 the beavers. These trees, of course, fell 

 and decayed, so that not even stumps or 

 roots were left. In the course of time 

 the beavers either were exterminated by 



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