trunks, they cut into lengths, according to their weight and thickness. These are then dragged by main force to the waterside, launched, and floated to their destination, Beavers build their houses, or “lodges,” under the banks of rivers and lakes, and always select those of such depth of water that there is no danger of their being frozen to the bottom. When such cannot be found, and they are compelled to build in small rivulets of insufficient depth, these clever little creatures dam up the waters until they are deep enough. The banks thrown up by them across rivulets for this purpose are of great strength, and would do credit to human engineers. Their lodges are built of sticks, mud, and stones, which form a compact mass; this freezes solid in winter, and defies the assaults of that housebreaker, the wolverine, an animal which is the beaver’s implacable foe. From this lodge, which is capable often of holding four old and six or eight young ones, a communication is maintained with the water below the ice, so that, should the wolverine succeed in breaking up the lodge, he finds the family “not at home” they having made good their retreat by the back-door. When man acts the part of housebreaker, however, he cunningly shuts the back-door first, by driving stakes through the ice, and thus stopping the passage. Then he enters, and, we almost regret to say, finds the family at home. We regret it, because the beaver is a gentle, peaceable, affectionate, hairy little creature, towards which one feels an irresistible tenderness. But to return from this digression.
Our trappers, having selected their several localities, set their traps in the water, so that when the beavers roamed about at night they put their feet into them, and were caught and drowned; for they cannot live altogether under water.
Thus the different parties proceeded; and in the mornings the camp was a busy scene skinning the animals. The skins were always stretched, dried, folded up with the hair in the inside, and laid by; and the flesh was used for food.
But oftentimes the trappers had to go forth with the gun in one hand and their traps in the other, while they kept a sharp look-out on the bushes to guard against surprise. Despite their efforts, a horse was occasionally stolen and even an unfortunate trapper murdered, and his traps taken.
An event of this kind occurred soon after the party had gained the western slopes of the mountains. Three Iroquois Indians, who belonged to the band of trappers,
