watched. For a
while it was all dark as a pocket; then I began to see things dimly.
Presently a darker shadow shot along the bottom and grabbed the pole.
It was a beaver, with a twenty dollar coat on. He tugged; I held on
tight--which surprised him so that he went back into his house to
catch breath.

But the taste of fresh bark was in his mouth, and soon he was back
with another beaver. Both took hold this time and pulled together. No
use! They began to swim round, examining the queer pole on every
side. "What kind of a stick are you, anyway?" one was thinking. "You
didn't grow here, because I would have found you long ago." "And
you're not frozen into the ice," said the other, "because you
wriggle." Then they both took hold again, and I began to haul up
carefully. I wanted to see them nearer. That surprised them immensely;
but I think they would have held on only for an accident. The blanket
slipped away; a stream of light shot in; there were two great whirls
in the water; and that was the end of the experiment. They did not
come back, though I waited till I was almost frozen. But I cut some
fresh birch and pushed it under the ice to pay for my share in the
entertainment.

The beaver's house is generally the last thing attended to. He likes
to build this when the nights grow cold enough to freeze his mortar
soon after it is laid. Two or three tunnels are dug from the bottom of
the beaver pond up through the bank, coming to the surface together at
the point where the center of the house is to be. Around this he lays
solid foundations of log and stone in a circle from six to fifteen
feet in diameter, according to the number of beavers to occupy the
house. On these foundations he rears a thick mass of sticks and grass,
which are held together by plenty of mud. The top is roofed by stout
sticks arranged as in an Indian wigwam, and the whole domed over with
grass, stones, sticks, and mud. Once this is solidly frozen, the
beaver sleeps in peace; his house is burglar proof.

If on a lake shore, where the rise of water is never great, the
beaver's house is four or five feet high. On streams subject to
freshets they may be two or three times that height. As in the case of
the musquash (or muskrat), a strange instinct guides the beaver as to
the height of his dwelling. He builds high or low, according to his
expectations of high or low water; and he is rarely drowned out of his
dry nest.

Sometimes two or three families