FAMINE IN BEAVER-LAND 209 
The work of harvesting winter supplies was 
still further hindered. 
But beavers never give up. To obtain as- 
pens which were to supply them with winter 
food they finally dug a tunnel. They began this 
on the bottom of the pond near the shore and 
dug outward toward the aspen grove. The 
tunnel was about two feet under the surface 
for fifteen feet. From this point it inclined 
upward and came out under a pine tree, close 
to the aspens. In only the last few feet, where 
the digging was through frozen ground, was there 
difficult digging of. this tunnel. Apparently 
the thick carpet of fallen leaves and the deep 
snow checked the frost and the earth had not 
frozen deeply. 
From the end of this tunnel the beavers 
cleared a dragway about eighteen inches wide 
to the aspen grove. In doing this they cut 
through three or four large logs and tunnelled 
under a number of others. Then aspens were 
felled, cut in short sections, dragged to the 
end of the tunnel, pushed through this out into 
the pond beneath the ice, and finally piled on 
the bottom of the pond close to the house. 
Solid snowdrifts formed in the grove while 
this slow work of transportation was going: on. 
A few aspens were cut from the top of a five- 
foot snowdrift. The following summer these 
