s, questioning the stillness
with eyes and ear and nose. Then, satisfied that there was no danger
near, it dropped on all fours and crept up toward the tree that was
partly cut through.

This pioneer of the woodcutters was followed immediately by three
others, who lost no time in getting down to work. One of them went to
help the leader, while the other two devoted themselves to trimming
and cutting up the branches of the big birch which they had felled
the night before. The Boy wondered where the rest of the pond-people
were, and would have liked to consult Jabe about it; but he remembered
the keenness of the beaver's ears, and held his tongue securely. It
seemed to him probably that they were still down in the pond, working
on the houses, the brush pile, or the dam. Presently one more was
accounted for. A renewed splashing in the canal turned the attention
of the watchers from the tree-cutting, and they saw that a single wise
excavator was at work, carrying forward the head of the ditch.

There was no impatience or desire to fidget left in Jabe Smith now. As
he watched the beavers at work in the moonlight, looking very
mysterious in their stealthy, busy, tireless diligence, and conducting
their toil with an ordered intelligence which seemed to him almost
human, he understood for the first time the Boy's enthusiasm for this
kind of bloodless hunting. He had always known how clever the beavers
were, and allowed them full credit; but till now he had never actually
realized it. The two beavers engaged in cutting down the tree sat
erect upon their haunches, supported by their huge tails, chiseling
indefatigably. Cutting two deep grooves, one about six or eight
inches, perhaps, above the other, they would then wrench off the chips
by main force with their teeth and forepaws, jerking their powerful
necks with a kind of furious impatience. As he noted how they made the
cut deeper and lower on one side than the other, that the tree might
fall as they wished, he was so delighted that he came dangerously near
vowing he would never trap a beaver again. He felt that it was almost
like ensnaring a brother woodsman.

Equally exciting was the work on the other tree, which was being
trimmed. The branches, according to their size, were cut into neat,
manageable lengths, of from three to six or seven feet--the less the
diameter the greater the length, each piece being calculated to be
handled in the water by one beaver. These pieces