102 ROMANCE OF THE BEAVER 
floating beneath the ice, useless except for building 
material the following summer and autumn, when 
repairs to lodge and dams would be needed. 
Nothing of particular importance occurred during 
the winter months. The pond, like so many others, 
lay hidden beneath two feet of sparkling ice over 
which was spread another two feet or more of con- 
cealing snow. Only a slight white mound showed 
where the beavers’ lodge stood, and from the top 
of this mound a scarcely perceptible film of vapour 
rose to show the place was occupied. The inmates 
knew nothing of what was happening in the great 
white world. Blizzards might rage, spreading 
terror among the unhoused dwellers of the woods. 
Tall, straight trees succumbed before its unseen 
power, and crashing to the hidden earth unheard in 
the roaring of the wind were soon buried beneath 
the wind-driven snow, torn and splintered stumps 
alone standing as gravestones to mark where they 
had lived proudly for so many years. The still cold 
nights when the thermometer might drop to thirty 
or forty degrees below zero, so that trees, chilled to 
the core, would burst with a sharp report which 
awakened the echoes of the dark mysterious forests. 
The clear white sun might shine with bright but 
heatless glare which revealed the sparkling crystals 
of the frozen snow but gave scant comfort to any 
living creature. Or the pale moon might rise 
and creeping slowly across the sky watch the great 
game of life and death, where the hunter and the 
