pose; therefore they gave up that idea, and 
returned to the neighborhood of the lodges. 
There, on the shore, where the water had 
been backed up by the dam, lay a boulder. 
Thirty thousand or more years before this 
time, that stone had been the plaything of the 
glacier which, in those days covered the ter¬ 
ritory now occupied by the great forest. As 
a result of its handling by that ancient river 
of ice, the stone was shaped into an almost 
perfect hemisphere, its rounded upper surface 
smooth, its flattened side rough and uneven. 
The stone had been much reduced in size 
through its rough treatment in the Ice Age; 
nevertheless, it was still a bulky object, weigh¬ 
ing at least thirty-five pounds. To move so 
heavy an affair was no easy task, especially as 
the stone was well embedded in the earth that 
surrounded it. But the three old beavers went 
valiantly to work, and in an hour’s time, had 
dug the soil from about the boulder, and had 
worked it out of its bed. Then, working two 
at a time, while the third beaver rested, they 
rolled that stone here and there, until they had 
covered a very large part of the slashing. 
Had the stone been especially designed for 
the work to which the three beavers put it, it 
could have been no better suited to their pur¬ 
pose. Every time it came down on its flat 
surface, it did so with a mighty thump that 
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