he came again and cut the other tree. 

 He must have made several trips to tow 

 back to his storage pile the lumber he 

 cut at my front door. 



I have devoted some time to specu- 

 lating as to the motive that might con- 

 ceivably actuate a perfectly sane and 

 intelligent beaver to haul his lumber 

 more than a mile, when in doing so he 

 would have to pass by hundreds of other 

 equally good trees, many of them within 

 a few rods of his house. The only rea- 

 sonable answer I have been able to 

 secure to this conundrum is that the 

 beaver probably thought it would be 

 a good joke on me; and I have a mental 

 picture of him laughing in his sleeve as 

 he dragged the logs down the bank in 

 front of my door while I slept. 



Early in October, a few years ago, 

 Bige and I were entertaining three guests 

 at our Cherry Pond camp. For two 

 days we had been hunting with indif- 

 ferent success. Awakening quite early 

 one morning, I took my rifle and leav- 



63 



