water at the base of it, and came up to the 
moonlit surface of Patou Pond. Then, swim¬ 
ming strongly with his webbed hind feet, while 
his fore paws hung almost motionless, he set 
out for the dam. There were willows growing 
there, and they were already green with the 
sweet, strongly-pulsing sap of early spring. 
“They would be very good,” thought O-Go. 
Soon he was at the dam, and was climbing 
from the water. He selected a fine young sap¬ 
ling, and brought it down with half a dozen 
bites of his powerful incisors. Here was a meal 
fit for any beaver, and there was no greedy Ilg, 
waiting to cheat him of it. He would have that 
sapling all to himself. 
O-Go was wrong in that idea. Another bea¬ 
ver appeared at his side, and with her there 
were three little ones. These were no larger than 
O-Go, himself, had been four years before. 
Immediately, the mother beaver and her 
three little ones began to eat at the sapling, 
which O-Go had felled for himself; while he, 
without protest, went on guard duty. He sat 
bolt upright on top of the dam, his coin-like 
little ears keen to catch any hostile sound, his 
nostrils alert to detect any hostile odor. He 
must see to it that no evil came near his mate 
or their helpless little ones. 
From far away down the creek, which 
flowed from the eastern end of the dam, there 
147 
