CHAPTER XII
THE WAYS OF BEAVER
The next morning Hugh and the boys made an early start, and crossing thewide flat below the lake, entered the valley of the Swift Current River.They passed close to the Kootenay camp, where the women were at workdressing hides and occupied with other tasks, while the children playedamong the lodges.
The valley of Swift Current is narrow and flanked on either side by highhills which, though at first rounded and grass-covered, grow steeper andnourish a growth of pines and aspens as one ascends the stream. Thetrail climbs steeply and, before long, splendid snow-capped mountainpeaks cut off the view to the southwest. From time to time the streamenlarges into a series of lakes, in and about which Hugh detected muchbeaver sign. Trees and bushes had been felled and, floating in the wateror lying on the bank, were many lengths of aspen and willow branches,stripped of their bark by the beaver.
"I reckon, son," said Hugh, as the three paused to look at these signs,"that the Kootenays have trapped all along this creek and have got out agood many of the beaver. Nevertheless, there are lots of them left, Iexpect; and I wouldn't be surprised if a man could make good wages allwinter trapping right here. There are some marten in these hills, andnow and then an otter and some fisher. It wouldn't be a bad thing tohave out a line of traps here."
"No," said Jack, "it wouldn't. I shouldn't mind wintering here a bit. Ibelieve there would be a lot of bears in early spring, to say nothing ofthe fur that you would get through the winter."
"Yes," said Hugh, "it's a pretty good trapping ground, and I don'tbelieve that it's ever been systematically gone over in winter. A mancould live pretty well here, too, for there's lots of sheep and elk, andsome deer and moose, to say nothing of the birds and a heap of fish inthe lakes and streams."
"I'm afraid I'll never get a chance to winter in this country, Hugh,"said Jack. "It seems that I must spend my winters back East."
"Well," said Hugh, "that's right enough, too. The day of the hunter andthe trapper has gone by in this country, and now we can only do forsport what we used to do for a living."
All through the morning and until well after noon, the party traveled upthe beautiful valley, constantly drawing nearer to the great mountainswhich towered before them.
Early in the afternoon they came to a wide meadow, bordered by greentimber, through which ran the river, flanked on either hand by thetowering cliffs of two great mountains. Here Hugh decided to camp, andbefore long the tent was put up and a smoke built for the benefit ofhorses and men alike, for the flies were very bad.
After dinner, Jack got from the pack some mosquito netting and, workingfor a short time with a needle and some thread, and, helped by Joe, madethree bags of the netting wide enough to slip over the head and comedown to shoulders and breast. When one put on his coat and buttoned itover the net, his head and neck were protected from the mosquitoes. Thiswork done, Jack put together his fishing rod and, drawing on his gloves,went over to the stream to fish for trout, which Hugh said were plentyin the river.
Not far above the camp was a considerable fall, where the water from alake tumbled thirty feet over the rocks into a deep pool below, in whichJack was interested to see a great school of fish. He drew back and madea number of casts, but the fish paid no attention to his flies, andafter he had faithfully whipped the pool for some time, he made up hismind that the fish would not bite. Lying on the rocks, with his faceclose to the water, he looked down upon the hundreds of them holdingthemselves in place, head against the current, apparently without movinga fin. As he studied them, he made up his mind that they were not trout,and his disappointment at not catching them was considerably modified.
While he was there, his attention was attracted by a dipper flyingacross the water and, presently, he saw that on a little shelf of rock,almost directly below the falls, the bird had a nest formed of greenmoss. There was a little hole in the bundle of moss, at the mouth ofwhich the bird alighted and seemed to pass in food. No doubt his matewas sitting on her eggs, which a little later would hatch into hungryyoung, to satisfy whose appetites would tax the efforts of both parents,no matter how hard they might work.
But Jack was hungry for fish and soon started down the stream. At firstit was so overgrown by willows and spruces that he could not fish, butnot far beyond this the trees stood farther back from it and he beganto cast. Before he had gone far he had a rise and caught a nice ten-inchtrout. Just below was a dark pool, from which he took four large fish,the largest weighing perhaps two pounds. His third fish was differentfrom any of those he had taken before, and so was the fourth. Instead ofbeing spotted with black, these two had red spots on them and headslarger and more clumsy than the black-spotted trout. They were not likethe brook trout of the East and Jack was puzzled to know what they were,but felt sure that Hugh would tell him.
Keeping on down stream, he soon had ten fish strung on a willow twig,and the load was so heavy that he turned from the river and, passingthrough a fringe of timber, found himself near camp.
Joe was sitting not far from the fire half in the smoke, and was rubbinga lot of green leaves between his palms and then passing his hands overhis face, neck and arms. Hugh, not so near the fire, was smokingvigorously, but seemed to be little troubled by the mosquitoes. Thehorses were still standing together, crowded into the smoke.
"Well, son," said Hugh, "that's a nice string of fish you've got. You'vedone well. That ought to last us for a couple of meals. Did you find thefish plenty?"
"Yes," replied Jack, "there are lots of them, and I want to ask you somequestions about them. In the first place that pool right under the fallsthere is just full of fish, and yet not one of them would rise to myflies. I looked at them pretty carefully and I don't believe they'retrout. Do you know what they are?"
"Peamouths, I reckon," answered Hugh.
"Peamouths?" said Jack. "I think I've heard that name, but I don't knowwhat it means."
"Why," replied Hugh, "it's a kind of a brook white fish, I reckon.They're quite a little like the white fish that we catch in the lakehere, and yet they're different, smaller, different in color and themouth is some different, too. Some people call them stone rollers. Idon't know just why, unless, perhaps, they turn over the stones at thebottom of the stream when they're looking for food; but that's just myguess from the name."
"Well," said Jack, "if we get a chance I'd like to catch one and see it,so that I'll know it again.
"And now, Hugh," he went on, "what kind of a trout is that?" and hepointed to one of the red-spotted fish on his string.
"That's a bull trout," answered Hugh.
"Well," said Jack, "there's another new fish. I never heard of bulltrout before, and I don't know what it is."
"I don't either," said Hugh, "except that I know that it's a trout thatwe have in these Northern waters and that I never saw in the RockyMountains, south of here. I never saw one south of Milk River ridge, Ithink."
"When I first got hold of it," explained Jack, "I thought for a minutethat maybe it was the Eastern brook trout, but it's a very differentfish."
"They are mighty good eating," declared Hugh, "but I don't know thatthey are any better than the regular trout, that fellow with blackspots."
"All trout are good enough," said Jack.
Presently Jack went over to Joe, who had finished his operations withthe leaves, and asked him what it was that he had been doing, and why hedid not wear his net.
"Trying to keep the flies off," said Joe. "There's a kind of a weed thatgrows in the wet places and I've heard that it's good medicine againstflies, so I gathered a lot of the leaves and rubbed them up and thenrubbed them over my skin, and it seems to me that the flies don't botherme as much now. That net I don't like. I can't see when I wear it."
"That's so," said Jack. "It does seem mighty warm and sort of takes mybreath away, but it isn't as bad as the mosquitoes. What's the weedyou've got?"
Joe showed him the plant, but Jack did not know it.
As the
y sat about the fire that evening after supper, the insects nolonger troubled them, for it was very cold; almost freezing. They hadhad a hearty meal and were feeling as lazy and comfortable as could be.Not much was said, but once in a while some one would make a remarkwhich required no reply.
Presently Jack said, "Hugh, I've been thinking about that beaver workthat we saw down the creek to-day and I want to ask you some morequestions about beaver. You told me a great deal last year, of course,but I still don't feel that I know much about them. I suppose I do knowmore than a good many other people, but I don't know much. I'd like tohave you tell me something more about them."
"That's so, son, we did talk a whole lot about beaver last year, when wewere trapping, and, of course, you saw something about their ways whilewe were catching them; but you're dead right, you don't know much aboutthem. For the matter of that, though, nobody does. I expect I know a lotmore than you, but I've got a whole lot to learn. They're a mightycurious animal."
"Well, Hugh," replied Jack, "of course, it's hard to find out much aboutanimals that spend a good deal more than half their lives out of sightand that one only sees now and then.
"There's one thing," he went on, "that I never thought of while we weretrapping, but that I did think of last winter, and it's puzzled me awhole lot. There are the beavers' houses built out in deep water and yetthere is a passage from under the water up into the house. I don'tunderstand how that passage is made. Is it possible that the beaversbuild the house so carefully that a tunnel is left leading from thebottom of the water up into the middle of the house, and then buildabout a room at the end of that tunnel? That doesn't seem possible, andif they do, how do they get the first sticks to stop at the bottom ofthe water. Why don't the sticks rise up and float away? I've beenpuzzling my head over that for some months now, and have wanted to askyou about it. I thought it would be a long story, and so it would not beworth while writing you about it."
"Well," said Hugh, "I ought to have told you about that last year. Idon't wonder that it puzzled you. It's enough, it seems to me, to puzzleanybody. But now suppose I go ahead and try to explain it to you the wayI understand it. Whatever I have learned comes, of course, from whatI've seen a beaver do, but more than anything from the few houses that Ihave had occasion to tear down."
"Well, I wish you would explain, Hugh," said Jack, "for I want tounderstand about this."
"Well, now," Hugh went on, "let's suppose you've got a little creekcoming down from the mountains where no beaver have ever been, and acouple that have left some colony where they belonged go off and findthis little creek, and think it's a pretty good place to stop. Maybe thecreek is shallow, and, if it is, about the first thing they do is tobuild two or three low dams across it, so as to give them deep water forsafety. Then from one of these little ponds where the water is deep,they'll dig a tunnel off at right angles to the stream, pretty wellunder the ground, about on a level, and when they get thirty or fortyfeet from the creek they'll enlarge it and make a room, and there iswhere they'll live for a little while. In the bottom of the tunnel thereis water for quite a little way, but when they have dug up and made aroom it's pretty dry there, except for the water that they pack in ontheir fur. Maybe they'll stay there for quite a while, but after alittle while they dig upward and come out to daylight--on top of theground in the stream bottom, I mean.
"Now, like enough they go off and begin to cut willows or cottonwood oraspen and bring it down close to the hole that they have in the ground,and very likely they'll pile sticks over that hole, possibly, at first,with the idea of hiding it. They drag down more and more sticks and makethe hole from the tunnel bigger, and, presently, they begin to cut outthe sticks that were first piled on top of the hole, so that, finally,they have their nest in the lower portion of this pile of sticks.Meantime, very likely, they have been working, more or less, on the damon the creek below the house, and have raised the water still more, sothat perhaps the tunnel is now full of water, and then, instead of usingthis tunnel to get out of, they'll gnaw a hole through the sticks of thehouse, making a passage-way from the room they occupy down to beneaththe surface of the water. They still keep working at the dam, raising itand making it level, so that the pond gets bigger and bigger all thetime.
"Perhaps the water is raised, so that it begins to come into the room inthe house that they occupy; the place is getting too wet for them. Thenit's quite possible that they will start down at the very edge of thewater and gnaw a tunnel upward, in a slanting direction, perhaps quiteclose to the covering of the house, and, finally, when they get up nearthe top of the house, they'll gnaw out another room, almost above thetwo they had occupied before. All this time they're working at the damand raising the water, and all this time, too, they are packing sticksup on top of the house, raising it higher and higher, and perhapsbringing mud, which they get along the bank, and putting this among thesticks on top of the house so as to bind the whole together and make ittight and warm for winter. If you study some old beaver pond, as I have,you will find that all along the edge of the pond, under the bank, butabove the water, but, of course, below the grass-roots, the beaver havetunneled out roads partly hidden by the overhanging sod and grass. Theytake this mud, as I have told you, and use it on the houses and on thedams, and these hidden ways under the bank enable them to go quietlyfrom one place in the pond to another without ever being seen."
"Well," said Jack, "that gives me a whole lot of new ideas. I neverthought of that way of making the passageways or the rooms. I knew thatthere must be some way, but what it was I couldn't tell, though Ifigured over it a whole lot."
"Yes," answered Hugh, "that's the way they do it. Now, you've never seenthe inside of a beaver house, but I have told you how the floor ispretty level and not very far above the water, and I've told you alsothat often they have benches all around the room on which they lie whenthey are in the house. Now, these benches are made in just the same waythat the room is made, that is to say, they are gnawed out of the solidsticks that the house is made of. First, perhaps, one old beaver willgnaw out a kind of a hollow in the wall of the room, with a flat levelfloor just about big enough for her to lie on, and then, perhaps, hermate will gnaw out another place like this, next to her, and perhaps aplace will be gnawed out for the young ones, so that all the beaver thatlive in the house will have benches to rest on, which, I suppose, aredrier, or, at all events, more comfortable, than the floor of the housewould be."
"I think I understand, Hugh," said Jack. "Anybody that has seen abeaver's teeth, and the work that they do, the trees that they cut down,and knows the short time that it takes them to do this, can understandeasily enough how it's perfectly possible for them to gnaw their waythrough a lot of small sticks, such as the houses are made of."
"Yes," said Hugh, "it's simple enough, of course, to know how beavercould chew through anything made of wood.
"I've told you," he went on, "about the open canals that the beaver digto get near where they are gathering their food, so as to get that foodto their houses and so as to have refuge in case an enemy should getafter them, but I don't believe I thought to tell you about theunderground tunnels that they dig, like those we've just been talkingabout. Of course, after a while, when the water has been raised, theseunderground tunnels are all covered up. The beaver no longer use themand they are very likely to fall in. Then if you are riding or wading ina beaver pond, you may suddenly step into a ditch that is a foot and ahalf or two feet deeper than the rest of the pond. Very likely if youare on horseback, the horse will fall down. A beaver pond or a beavermeadow is likely to be full of traps for anyone who goes through it.
"There's another thing," he continued. "Sometimes, if there is a littlepond or lake not far off from a creek where the beaver have made a pondthey will dig a channel to that. They are more likely to do that if thewater in the pond toward which they are digging stands higher than thewater in their own pond. They can travel through this channel up to theother pond, and, perhaps, there get a lot of fo
od which they can floatdown through this channel. I remember once seeing such a place, wherethe channel had evidently been used to float down the food, but when Isaw the place, the water was low in the creek and in the pond, and inmany places the channel between the two was nearly dry. At one point thebeaver had run up against a big boulder which lay in the channel thatthey were digging, and they had had to go around it. They had cut a bigcottonwood stick in the upper pond, perhaps eight inches through andfour or five feet long, and had started to float it down the canal. Thenthe water seemed to have given out on them, and there was this big stickstranded on the boulder, where, of course, it had to wait until thewater was high next spring, when it would be floated down to the placethey wanted to get it to."
Jack had been listening eagerly to this account, and when Hugh stoppedspeaking, said, "Dear me, Hugh, how much you know about this country andthe animals that live in it. I wonder if anyone else knows as much. Imade a point this winter of reading two or three books on beaver andtrying to find out everything that I could about the animal, but none ofthese books said one word about what you have been telling me; they justsaid that the beaver built dams and houses and kept talking about howsmart he was, but really they didn't know anything about the animal.They were just guessing all the time. There wasn't a word said about howthe beaver got into their houses, nor how they made the passage or therooms. They didn't explain a bit, and yet, from the way they wrote,you'd suppose they knew it all."
"Well," answered Hugh, with a smile, "when they came to a place wherethey did not understand how the beaver did anything, I suppose theydidn't have anybody to go to and ask, and so they had to just keep onwriting and pretending that it was all simple enough to them, even ifthey didn't explain how it was to the people that read the books."
"Well," said Jack, "I think they're frauds; regular frauds. If a man ispretending to tell about anything, and comes to a place where he doesn'tknow any more, he ought to stop writing there, and then go on and writeabout something that he does know about."
"Well, now," said Hugh, "ain't you a little mite hard on these fellowsthat write books? I expect that they don't like to say that they don'tknow. Of course, a man that don't know oughtn't to be telling peopleabout the things he don't know about."
"No," said Jack, "you bet he oughtn't to, and that's what I'm kickingabout."
"Well, son, your kicking may give you some satisfaction, but it won'thurt the men that are writing the books."
"No," said Jack, "I guess not, but it's a fraud all the same."
"Well," said Hugh, "it's about time for us to turn in. Suppose you boysgo out and catch two of the riding horses and picket them strongly, andI guess the others will stay with them until morning."
The boys did this, and when they returned to camp all hands turned infor the night.