The Builders. 79 



caught some of the colony, no doubt, in the well-fed 

 autumn days, as they worked on their dam and houses. 

 Sharp hunger made him remember them as he came 

 throucjh the wood on his nia;htlv hunt after hares. 

 He knew well that the beavers were safe ; that 

 months of intense cold had made their two-foot mud 

 walls like granite. But he came, nevertheless, just 

 to pretend he had caught one, and to remember how 

 good his last full meal smelled when he ate it in 

 October. 



It was all so boylike, so unexpected tliere in the 

 heart of the wilderness, that I quite forgot that I 

 wanted the lynx's >kin. I was hungry tun, and went 

 out for a sniff at the ventilator: and it smelled good. 

 I remembered the time once when I liad eaten beaver, 

 and was crlad to o-et it. I walked about amono- the 

 houses. On everv dome there were lynx tracks, old 

 and new, and the prints of a blunt nose in the snow. 

 E\'identh' he came often to dine on the smell of good 

 dinners. I looked the \\'a\- he had gone, and began 

 to be sorry for him. But there were the beavers, safe 

 and warm and fearless within two feet of me, listening 

 undoubtedly to the strange steps without. And that 

 was good ; for they are the most interesting creatures 

 in all the wilderness. 



Most of us know the beaver chieiiy in a simile. 

 " Working like a beaver," or " busy as a beaver," is 



