CHAPTER X 
REBUILDING A BEAVER COLONY 
N PASSING the Meadow Beaver Colony one 
I July afternoon I saw an old beaver come 
up out of the water with a ball of mud in 
his forepaws. He jammed this mud into a 
low spot in the dam. Tracks in the mud along 
the top of this old dam, and a number of green 
aspen sticks with the bark eaten off lying on the 
side of the house, showed that a number of 
beavers had been using this old house and pond 
for several days. 
This was interesting because the place had been 
abandoned fifteen years before and most of the 
old beaver works were in ruins. One house, nowa 
mound overgrown with willows, retained its form. 
The pond it was in had not filled with sediment. 
Did this repairing of the dam mean that this 
old colony was to be resettled by beavers? 
It probably did, for the beavers ever work for 
a purpose and not just to be working. It was 
mid-summer and all beavers who were not 
making emergency repairs or extensive im- 
provements were off on a summer vacation. 
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