102 ROMANCE OF THE BEAVER 



floating beneath the ice, useless except for building 

 material the following summer and autumn, when 

 repairs to lodge and dams would be needed. 



Nothing of particular importance occurred during 

 the winter months. The pond, like so many others, 

 lay hidden beneath two feet of sparkling ice over 

 which was spread another two feet or more of con- 

 cealing snow. Only a slight white mound showed 

 where the beavers' lodge stood, and from the top 

 of this mound a scarcely perceptible film of vapour 

 rose to show the place was occupied. The inmates 

 knew nothing of what was happening in the great 

 white world. Blizzards might rage, spreading 

 terror among the unhoused dwellers of the woods. 

 Tall, straight trees succumbed before its unseen 

 power, and crashing to the hidden earth unheard in 

 the roaring of the wind were soon buried beneath 

 the wind-driven snow, torn and splintered stumps 

 alone standing as gravestones to mark where they 

 had lived proudly for so many years. The still cold 

 nights when the thermometer might drop to thirty 

 or forty degrees below zero, so that trees, chilled to 

 the core, would burst with a sharp report which 

 awakened the echoes of the dark mysterious forests. 

 The clear white sun might shine with bright but 

 heatless glare which revealed the sparkling crystals 

 of the frozen snow but gave scant comfort to any 

 living creature. Or the pale moon might rise 

 and creeping slowly across the sky watch the great 

 game of life and death, where the hunter and the 



