CHAPTER XX

A FEUD IN THE WILDERNESS

A soft wind blowing from the south and east brought the scent of the
invaders to Gray Wolf's nose when they were still half a mile away. She
gave the warning to Kazan and he, too, found the strange scent in the
air. It grew stronger as they advanced. When two hundred yards from the
windfall they heard the sudden crash of a falling tree, and stopped. For
a full minute they stood tense and listening. Then the silence was
broken by a squeaking cry, followed by a splash. Gray Wolf's alert ears
fell back and she turned her blind face understandingly toward Kazan.
They trotted ahead slowly, approaching the windfall from behind. Not
until they had reached the top of the knoll on which it was situated did
Kazan begin to see the wonderful change that had taken place during
their absence. Astounded, they stood while he stared. There was no
longer a little creek below them. Where it had been was a pond that
reached almost to the foot of the knoll. It was fully a hundred feet in
width and the backwater had flooded the trees and bush for five or six
times that distance toward the burn. They had come up quietly and Broken
Tooth's dull-scented workers were unaware of their presence. Not fifty
feet away Broken Tooth himself was gnawing at the butt of a tree. An
equal distance to the right of him four or five of the baby beavers were
at play building a miniature dam of mud and tiny twigs. On the opposite
side of the pond was a steep bank six or seven feet high, and here a few
of the older children--two years old, but still not workmen--were having
great fun climbing the bank and using it as a toboggan-slide. It was
their splashing that Kazan and Gray Wolf had heard. In a dozen different
places the older beavers were at work.

A few weeks before Kazan had looked upon a similar scene when he had
returned into the north from Broken Tooth's old home. It had not
interested him then. But a quick and thrilling change swept through him
now. The beavers had ceased to be mere water animals, uneatable and
with an odor that displeased him. They were invaders--and enemies. His
fangs bared silently. His crest stiffened like the hair of a brush, and
the muscles of his forelegs and shoulders stood out like whipcords. Not
a sound came from him as he rushed down upon Broken Tooth. The old
beaver was oblivious of danger until Kazan was within twenty feet of
him. Naturally slow of movement on land, he stood for a