THE LIFE OF A BEAVER COLONY 131 



pond that had been the scene of such activities 

 during the past five years. Under the leadership 

 of the old beaver they trekked across country to 

 the new land of promise. It was not a conspicuous 

 band of immigrants that undertook the big journey, 

 for they did not march all together, but in a long, 

 straggling line, following each other by the invisible 

 trail of scent as surely and easily as man follows his 

 well-built roads. Travelling on land shows a 

 beaver at his worst ; he is slow, and even clumsy, 

 and is at the mercy of any passing enemy. It is 

 therefore with a feeling of dread that they venture 

 far from water, so well do they realise their own 

 shortcomings. Of the twenty-five that started 

 out, only eighteen reached their destination. And 

 it was only by good fortune that the death list had 

 not been far greater. A pair of wolves out hunting 

 for their cubs' dinner came across the beavers' 

 trail. They needed no urging, for they knew that 

 it was the trail of the most easily killed of all 

 the animals in the woods. So they followed at a 

 swinging trot, careful only to see that they did not 

 overrun their quarry. Less than an hour later, the 

 rising moon lightened up the tragedy, the details 

 of which are quite unnecessary. Sufficient is it to 

 say that seven beavers ceased to be, and had it not 

 been for a small pond into which the others escaped, 

 it is likely that the new colony would never have 

 been founded. The wolves would have killed the 



I entire band without the slightest difficulty. As it 

 I 



