watching me sharply the while, diving at my slightest
movement, reappearing on the farther shore, cautious and canny as ever.

It was spring. Within a few weeks after my homecoming the Pegs would
permit my near approach as they had done before I went away. Though
they worked mostly at night, they did venture out in daytime. If they
were working at separate tasks, the first to discover me would thump
the ground or give the water a resounding whack.

One morning Daddy Peg was missing from the pond. Downstream I picked
up his tracks and discovered that he was hastening away from home. As
it was springtime, I was not concerned lest he was deserting his
faithful wife. It was his habit to leave home when Mrs. Peg was
"expecting." I knew he'd come waddling back in a few weeks to give the
babies their daily plunge.

Sure enough, Mrs. Peg came forth with four midgets in fur; a happy,
romping family that splashed about the pool for hours at a time. Like
all their kin, they had been born with their eyes open and were much
"perter" then other animal infants. They swam, and ate, and took the
trail at once. If Mrs. Peg showed fear of anything, the youngsters
took quick alarm, and forever afterward shunned the object. Of me,
Mrs. Peg took little notice, merely giving me the right of way if I
intruded on one of her trails, or stopping work to watch me curiously
whenever I came near. The beaver babies accepted me as a friend,
permitted me to sit or stand near them as they played.

One morning, as I approached the pool, I discovered the four youngsters
in great agitation. They were not playing. They swam about
restlessly, circled the pool, visited the dam, swam out to their house,
dived inside it, only to reappear almost at once. I searched around
the pond, and found their mother's fresh tracks leading toward the
aspen grove. Near it she had been overtaken by a coyote.

In vain I tried to catch the motherless waifs, but they eluded me. I
went home, made a rude sort of dip-net from an old sack, and returned
to the pool.

During my absence a strange beaver mother with a brood of five babies
had visited the pool where the orphans lived. She immediately adopted
the wee bereft babies. Shortly the pool was merry with the rompings of
the combined families.

CHAPTER NINE

MOUNTAIN CLIMBING

Mountain climbing is the reverse of the general rule of life in that
the ascent is easier than the descent, and much saf