54 East and West 
There was no tumult now and the silent hosts 
gathered through the hours of the day and 
night and one by one the detachments drifted 
by. But that endless array, like an army 
on the retreat, spoke of the conquest of the 
wilderness—the conquest and the death. 
Beavers are perhaps exterminated in the 
North Woods, but the human beavers are at 
work and nothing will ever exterminate them 
save the extinction of the woods in which they 
live. It has been computed that, at the pre- 
sent rate, in twenty-five years they will have 
gnawed down the last tree. Future gener- 
ations of Americans will rise up and call us 
foolish that we allowed our lands to be de- 
spoiled and our water supplies to be jeo- 
pardised in this way. For our extravagance 
they will pay with an enforced thrift. But 
man is by nature destructive and surely the 
lumberman is by far the most dangerous 
animal in the wilderness. 
As the last of the huge rafts drifts out of 
sight, the human beavers disappear with it, 
their destructive work over for the season. 
With true beaver instinct they have dammed 
the stream and every spring raise the level 
of Forkéd Lake some four or five feet in order 
to facilitate the passage of the rafts. But 
