quiet sunshine of
an autumn afternoon" 6

Building the Dam 22

Nesting Grounds 62

"He tried jumping out of the water" 72

"The hole was suddenly darkened, and a round,
hairy face looked in" 100

"He was a very presentable young lynx" 110

"They both stood still and looked at each other" 120

"High up in the top of a tall hemlock" 132

"He quickly made his way to the beach" 148

"He went under as simply as you would step out
of bed" 166

"She herself was a rarely beautiful sight" 170

"The old earth sliding southward fifty miles
an hour" 180

"He was a baby to be proud of" 202

"The buck was nearing the prime of life" 226

"Wherever they went they were always struggling
and fighting" 230

_INTRODUCTION_

_Some thirty years ago, while out on one of his landlooking trips in
the woods of Northern Michigan, my father came upon a little lake which
seemed to him the loveliest that he had ever seen, though he had visited
many in the course of his explorations. The wild ponds are very apt to
be shallow and muddy, with low, marshy shores; but this one was deep and
clear, and its high banks were clothed with a splendid growth of beech,
maple and birch. Tall elms stood guard along the water's edge, and here
and there the hardwood forest was broken by dark hemlock groves, and
groups of lordly pine-trees, lifting their great green heads high above
their deciduous neighbors. Only in one place, around the extreme eastern
end, the ground was flat and wet; and there the tamarack swamp showed
golden yellow in October, and light, delicate green in late spring. Wild
morning-glories grew on the grassy point that put out from the northern
shore, and in the bays the white water-lilies were blossoming. Nearly
two miles long and three-quarters of a mile wide, it lay basking and
shimmering in the sunshine, a big, broad, beautiful sheet of water set
down in the very heart of the woods._

_There were no settlers anywhere near, nor even any Indians, yet there
was no lack of inhabitants. Bears and wolves and a host of smaller