The House in the Water Part 3

While the building was going on, yet another pair of beavers appeared, and the work was pressed with a feverish energy that produced amazing results. The Boy remembered a story told him by an old Indian, but not confirmed by any natural history which he had come across, to the effect that when a pair of young beavers set out to establish a new pond, some of the old ones go along to lend a hand in the building of the dam. It was plain that these workers were all in a tremendous hurry; and the Boy could see no reason for haste unless it was that the majority of the workers had to get back to their own affairs. With the water once fairly brought under control, and the pond deep enough to afford a refuge from enemies, the young pair could be trusted to complete it by themselves, get their house ready, and gather their supplies in for the winter. The Boy concluded to his own satisfaction that what he was now watching was the a.n.a.logue, in beaver life, to one of those "house-raising" bees which sometimes took place in the Settlement, when the neighbours would come together to help a man get up the frame of a new house. Only, as it seemed to him, the beavers were a more serious and more sober folk than the men.

When this wilderness engineering had progressed for an hour under the watchers' eyes, Jabe began to grow very tired. The strain of physical immobility told upon him, and he lost interest. He began to feel that he knew all about dam-building; and as there was nothing more to learn he wanted to go back to camp. He glanced anxiously at the young face beside him--but there he could see no sign of weariness. The Boy was aglow with enthusiasm. He had forgotten everything but the wonderful little furry architects, their diligence, their skill, their cooperation, and the new pond there growing swiftly before his eyes.

Already it was more than twice as wide as when they had arrived on the scene; the dam was a good eight inches higher; and the clamour of the flowing stream was stopped. No, Jabe could see no sympathy for himself in that eager face. He was ashamed to beg off. And moreover, he was loyal to his promise of obedience. The Boy, here, was Captain.

Suppressing a sigh, Jabe stealthily and very gradually s.h.i.+fted to an easier position, so stealthily that the Boy beside him did not know he had moved. Then, fixing his eyes once more upon the beavers, he tried to renew his interest in them. As he stared, he began to succeed amazingly. And no wonder! The beavers all at once began to do such amazing things. There were many more of them than he had thought; and he was sure he heard them giving orders in something that sounded to him like the Micmac tongue. He could not believe his ears. Then he saw that they were using larger stones, instead of mud and turf, in their operations--and floating them down the pond as if they were corks. He had never heard of such a thing before, in all his wilderness experience. He was just about to compliment the Boy on this unparalleled display of engineering skill, when one particularly large beaver, who was hoisting a stone as big as himself up the face of the dam, let his burden slip a little. Then began a terrible struggle between the beaver and the stone. In his agonizing effort--which his companions all stopped work to watch--the unhappy beaver made a loud, gurgling, gasping noise; then, without a hint of warning, dropped the stone with a splash, turned like lightning, and grabbed Jabe violently by the arm.

The astonis.h.i.+ng scene changed in a twinkling; and Jabe realized that the Boy was shaking him.

"A nice one to watch beavers, you are!" cried the Boy, angry and disappointed.

"Why--where've they all gone to?" demanded Jabe, rubbing his eyes.

"They're the most interestin' critters I ever hearn tell of!"

"Interesting!" retorted the Boy, scornfully. "So interesting you went to sleep! And you snored so they thought it was an earthquake. Not another beaver'll show a hair round here to-night. We'd better go home!"

Jabe grinned sheepishly, but answered never a word; and silently, in Indian file, the Boy leading, the two took the trail back to camp.

CHAPTER VI

The Peril of the Traps

AT breakfast next morning the Boy had quite recovered his good humour, and was making merry at Jabe's expense. The latter, who was, of course, defenceless and abashed, was anxious to give him something new to think of.

"Say," he exclaimed suddenly, after the Boy had prodded him with a searching jibe. "If ye'll let up on that snore, now, I'll take a day off from my cruisin', and show ye somethin' myself."

"Good!" said the Boy. "It's a bargain. What will you show me?"

"I'll take ye over to one of _my_ ponds, in next valley, an' show ye all the different ways of _trappin'_ beaver."

The Boy's face fell.

"But what do _I_ care about _trapping_ beaver?" he cried. "You know I wouldn't trap anything. If I had to kill anything, I'd _shoot_ it, and put it out of misery as quick as I could!"

"I know all that," responded Jabe. "But trappin' is somethin' ye want to _understand_, all the same. Ye can't be an all-round woodsman 'less ye _understand_ trappin'. An' moreover, there's some things ye learn about wild critters in tryin' to git the better of 'em that ye can't learn no other way."

"I guess you're right, Jabe!" answered the Boy, slowly. Knowledge he would have, whether he liked the means of getting it or not. But the woodsman's next words relieved him.

"I'll just show ye _how_, that's all!" said Jabe. "It's a leetle too airly in the season yit fur actual trappin'. An' moreover, it's agin the law. Agin the law, an' agin common sense, too, fer the fur ain't no good, so to speak, fer a month yit. When the law an' common sense stand together, then I'm fer the law. Come on!"

Picking up his axe, he struck straight back into the woods, in a direction at right angles to the brook. To uninitiated eyes there was no trail; but to Jabe, and to the Boy no less, the path was like a trodden highway. The pace set by the backwoodsman, with his long, slouching, loose-jointed, flat-footed stride, was a stiff one, but the Boy, who was lean and hard, and used his feet straight-toed like an Indian, had no fault to find with it. Neither spoke a word, as they swung along single file through the high-arched and ancient forest, whose shadows, so sombre all through summer, were now shot here and there with sharp flashes of scarlet or pale gleams of aerial gold.

Once, rounding a great rock of white granite stained with faint pinkish and yellowish reflections from the bright leaves glowing over it, they came face to face with a tall bull moose, black and formidable-looking as some antediluvian monster. The monster, however, had no desire to hold the way against them. He eyed them doubtfully for a second, and then went cras.h.i.+ng off through the brush in frank, undignified alarm.

For a good three miles the travellers swung onward, up a slow long slope, and down a longer, slower one into the next valley. The Boy noted that the region was one of numberless small brooks flowing through a comparatively level land, with old, long-deserted beaver-meadows interspersed among wooded knolls. Yet for a time there were no signs of the actual living beavers. He asked the reason, and Jabe said:

"It's been all trapped over an' over, years back, when beaver pelts was high,--an' by Injuns, likely, who just cleaned out everythin',--an' broke down the dams,--an' dug out the houses. But the little critters is comin' back. Furder up the valley there's some good ponds now!"

"And now they'll be cleaned out again!" exclaimed the Boy, with a rush of indignant pity.

"Not on yer life!" answered Jabe. "We don't do things that way now. We don't play low-down tricks on 'em an' clean out a whole family, but jest take so many out of each beaver house, an' then leave 'em alone two er three years to kinder recooperate!"

As Jabe finished they came in sight of a long, rather low dam, with a pond spread out beyond it that was almost worthy to be called a lake.

It was of comparatively recent creation, as the Boy's observant eye decided at once from the dead trees still rising here and there from the water.

"Gee!" he exclaimed, under his breath. "That's a great pond, Jabe!"

"There's no less'n four beaver houses in that pond!" said the woodsman, with an air of proud possession. "That makes, accordin' to my reckonin', anywheres from thirty to thirty-six beaver. Bye and bye, when the time comes, I'll kinder thin 'em out a bit, that's all!"

From the crest of the dam all four houses--one far out and three close to sh.o.r.e--were visible to the Boy's initiated eye; though strangers might have taken them to be mere casual acc.u.mulations of sticks deposited by some whimsical freshet. It troubled him to think how many of the architects of these cunningly devised dwellings would soon have to yield up their harmless and interesting lives; but he felt no mission to attempt a reform of humanity's taste for furs, so he did not allow himself to become sentimental on the subject. Beavers, like men, must take fate as it comes; and he turned an attentive ear to Jabe's lesson.

"Ye know, of course," said the woodsman, "the steel trap we use. We ain't got no use fer the tricks of the Injuns, though I'm goin' to tell ye all _them_, in good time. An' we ain't much on new-fangled notions, neether. But the old, smooth-jawed steel-trap, what kin _hold_ when it gits a grip, an' not tear the fur, is good enough for us."

"Yes, I know all your traps, of all the sizes you use, from muskrat up to bear!" interrupted the Boy. "What size do you use for the beaver?"

"Number four," answered Jabe. "Jaw's got a spread of six and one-half inches or thereabouts. But it's all in the where an' the how ye set yer trap!"

"And that's what I want to know about!" said the Boy. "But why don't you _shoot_ the poor little beggars? That's quicker for both, and just as easy for you, ain't it?"

"T'ain't no use _shootin'_ a beaver, leastways not in the water! He just sinks like a stone. No, ye've _got_ to trap him, to _git_ him.

Now, supposin' you was goin' to trap, where would ye set the traps?"

"I'd anchor them just in the entrances to their houses," answered the Boy promptly. "Or along their ca.n.a.ls, when they've got ca.n.a.ls. Or round their brush piles an' storage heaps. And when I found a tree they'd just partly cut down, I'd set a couple of traps, covered up in leaves, each side of the trunk, where they'd have to step on the pan when they stood up to gnaw."

"Good for you!" said Jabe, with cordial approbation. "Ye'd make a first-cla.s.s trapper, 'cause ye've got the right notion. Every one of them things is done, one time or another, by the old trapper. But here's one or two wrinkles more killin' yet. An' moreover, if ye trap a beaver on land ye're like to lose him one way or another. He's got so much _purchase_, on land, with things to git hold on to; he's jest as like as not to twist his leg clean off, an' git away. If it's one of his fore legs, which is small an' slight, ye know, he's most sure to twist it off. An' sometimes he'll do the trick even with a hind leg. I've caught lots of beaver as had lost a fore leg, an' didn't seem none the worse. The fur'd growed over it, an' they was slick an'

hearty. An' I've caught them as had lost a hind leg, an' they was in good condition. A beaver'll stand a lot, I tell you. But then, supposin' you git yer beaver, caught so fast he ain't no chance whatever to git clear. Then, like as not, some lynx, or wildcat, or fisher, or fox, or even maybe a bear, 'll come along an' help himself to Mr. Beaver without so much as a by yer leave. No, ye want to git him in the water; an' as he's just as anxious to git thar as you are to git him thar, that suits all parties to a T."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'OR EVEN MAYBE A BEAR.'"]

"Good!" said the Boy,--not that it really seemed to him good, but to show that he was attending.

"But," continued Jabe, "what would ye say would most upset the beaver and make 'em careless?"

The Boy thought for a moment.

"Breaking their dam!" he answered tentatively.

"_Eg_zactly!" answered the woodsman. "Well, now, to ketch beaver sure, make two or three breaks in their dam, an' set the traps jest a leetle ways above the break, on the upper slope, where they're sure to step into 'em when hustlin' round to mend the damage. That gits 'em, every time. Ye chain each trap to a stake, driven into three or four foot of water; an' ye drive another stake about a foot an' a half away from the first. When the beaver finds himself caught, he dives straight for deep water,--his way of gittin' clear of most of his troubles. But this time he finds it don't work. The trap keeps a holt, bitin' hard.

An' in his struggle he gits the chain all tangled up 'round the two stakes, an' drowns himself. There you have him safe, where no lynx nor fox kin git at him."

"Then, when one of them dies so dreadfully, right there before their eyes," said the Boy, "I suppose the others skin out and let the broken dam go! They must be scared to death themselves!"

"Not on yer life, they don't!" responded Jabe. "The dam's the thing they care about. They jest keep on hustlin' round; an' they mend up that dam if it takes half the beaver in the pond to do it. Oh, they're grit, all right, when it comes to standin' by the dam."

"Hardly seems fair to take them that way, does it?" mused the Boy sympathetically.

"It's a good way," a.s.serted Jabe positively, "quick an' sure! Then, in winter there's another good an' sure way,--where ye don't want to clean out the whole house, which is killin' the goose what lays the golden egg, like the Injuns does! Ye cut a hole in the ice, near the bank. Then ye git a good, big, green sapling of birch or willow, run the little end 'way out into the pond under the ice, an' ram the big end, sharpened, deep into the mud of the bank, so the beaver can't pull it out. Right under this end you set yer trap. Swimmin' round under the ice, beaver comes across this fresh-cut sapling an' thinks as how he's got a good thing. He set right to work to gnaw it off, close to the bank, to take it back to the house an' please the family. First thing, he steps right into the trap. An' that's the end of him. But other beaver'll come along an' take the sapling, all the same!"