roots. Not all of the elders took part in this 
work however, for there must always be some¬ 
one on guard. 
This task fell that evening to O-Go’s great- 
uncle—Castor, the oldest and wisest of all the 
beavers on Patou. He knew all the scents of 
the neighborhood, and could sort them out, 
even when, as often happened, they came, not 
singly but several at one time. Uncle Castor 
ignored the odors of all harmless creatures, such 
as old Snow-shoe, the giant hare, merely sniff¬ 
ing carefully in order to make certain that the 
friendly smell did not mask that of some 
enemy a trifle farther off. Then he gave no 
further notice to Snow-shoe. 
That was not the manner in which Uncle 
Castor acted, when his sensitive nostrils caught 
even the faintest whiff of coyote odor. When 
that occurred, the wise old fellow immediately 
thwacked the water with his broad, flat tail. 
Then, without pausing a second, he plunged 
beneath the surface of the pond, and every 
beaver in the colony followed his example. 
Beavers always obey without hesitation such 
orders from a sentinel; for it is better to heed 
a dozen false alarms than to fail to respond to 
one true one. The law of the forest is, “Be 
quick, lest you be dead.” 
However, false alarms were very unlikely to 
occur, when the sentinel was Uncle Castor. He 
35 
