rabbit tracks which had ultimately led to his finding of
Alec Smith the fall before.

It did not take him long to reach the first or big dam. It was difficult
for this boy of the city to believe that this could be the work of
animals and not men, and had he not seen some of the beaver cuttings in
the Bronx Park at home he would have been inclined to think that Upton
had been stuffing him when he told him about the dam. There was little
opportunity to examine the construction, because it was covered with
snow and was in effect a long solid wall of glistening white. Beyond
stretched the smooth even surface of the big pond, with nothing to break
the dead level of it but three white mounds over toward the north shore.
These he knew must be the houses of which Upton had told him, and he at
once decided to go over and investigate them.

As he approached them he discovered several small mounds around two of
the houses, but thought nothing of this until he noticed that the snow
around them had been recently disturbed, and that the mounds themselves
were not crusted. Instantly every sense which his Scout training had
developed was aroused. Here was something peculiar, and to be
investigated. Could this be the work of the beavers? He would find out.
Rapidly he dug into one of the mounds and presently disclosed evergreen
boughs over which the snow had been heaped. Could this be some work of
the strange little animals of which he had never heard? He lifted one of
the boughs and looked at the butt. It had been _broken_ off and not cut
by teeth. Moreover, it was freshly broken. He examined another with the
same result. Underneath was a larger one, and this had been cut with an
axe.

Sparrer straightened and looked keenly in all directions. A sudden
suspicion was rapidly crystallizing into conviction in his mind. This
was the work of man. What did it mean? So far as he could see there was
not another living thing in all that great white waste. The vast
silence was oppressive. Involuntarily he shivered. For the first time
the loneliness of complete solitude gripped him, the more so that
hitherto in all his life he had never known what it was to be absolutely
alone. From babyhood he had been surrounded night and day by human
beings, many of them evil, but human nevertheless. Even since he had
entered the woods he had not been out of speaking distance of one or
more of his companions until now. An overwhelming sense of littleness
and