At this stage of the war, Bige and I surrendered. We were hopelessly outnumbered and outclassed by the beavers. They worked while we were asleep. We now got busy and cut out a new trail around the swamp and the flooded area to connect with the old trail. This makes the walk fully a half mile longer than before the dam was built.
The Chief Engineer had lived at Cherry Pond ten years. He had brought out a new family of from four to seven individuals every spring. All of these had been housed and fed for two or three years, when they were old enough to emigrate and set up in business and housekeeping on their own. During these ten years a large quantity of bark had been consumed and poplar, the favorite food of beaver, had practically all been cut off. Along the shores and on the islands no more was to be found. It was, therefore, necessary to seek new sources of food supply.
Beyond the swamp, to the northeast of the river mouth, there was a grove of poplar trees, covering several acres. It was nearly a half mile to this grove, but not too far for the courage of our Chief, who now set his gang of youngsters at work digging a canal. This canal had an average width of three feet and it was two and a half feet deep. It was made quite crooked through the swamp, winding around and between clumps of alders and larger trees. Smaller trees were dug up and roots which crossed the path of the canal were cut off as clean as if chopped with an axe.
Water in the canal through the swamp maintained practically the level of the pond. There was a gradual rise of ground beyond the swamp and here a series of dams or locks were built. Each dam raised the level of water from two to three feet. There were thirteen of these levels varying in length from fifty, to two hundred and fifty feet. Water from a spring brook was diverted into the canal and flowed over each dam. The beavers towed their lumber through this canal and dragged it over the several dams, each of which seemed to be especially constructed to facilitate this operation. The length of this canal we estimated to be twenty-five hundred feet.
Beavers appear to prefer the bark of smaller trees, but they do not hesitate to cut down a large one when necessary. In such case they carry away the branches only. A poplar tree eighteen inches in diameter was cut on the shore of our pond and felled into the water. The branches that remained above the surface were cut off and carried to the storage pile. Those that were under water were left and were cut off under the ice during the following winter.
Beavers are generally peaceable. They have many admirable traits. Individuals of one colony will assist those of another in strenuous operations much as pioneer humans helped each other in building log cabins, in barn raisings, etc. Many tales are told. One, of a family whose house had been destroyed, being taken into another's house and the two families living together all winter. Another story relates how a mother beaver was killed, when another immediately adopted the five orphans and brought them up with her own children. We have recorded above, instances where the Chief Engineer was contributing his remarkable skill and experience toward solving the problems of his friends in widely separated parts of the forest. And we believe he did not insist upon union rules in regard to wage, hours of labor, or minimum output.
Our observations justify the belief that at least some beavers have a sense of humor. We mention two incidents in support of the theory. One day on the big lake, near the hotel, I saw two girls about twelve years of age, in a canoe. These girls were chasing a beaver. The beaver was swimming on the surface and he was more than half a mile from his house. He could easily have outdistanced the canoe and got away from it, but he chose to swim slowly and allow the canoe to approach until the girls might have touched him with a paddle, when he would hump himself, slap the water with his tail, thus throwing showers of spray over the girls, while he dived under the canoe and presently came to the surface in some new and unexpected position. The girls, of course, with screams and excited shouts frantically swung the canoe into position and started the chase over again; while the beaver loafed along until they caught up. This game of tag, played by the girls and the beaver I watched for twenty minutes or more and each time the girls came near enough to the animal he managed to throw water on them. I feel certain that he enjoyed the game quite as much as the two girls, and while I did not hear the beaver laugh, I thought I saw a grin on his face.
The cottage where our family live during the summer, stands on a bank about thirty feet above the water and fifty feet from the shore of the lake. A number of shade trees have been planted on the grounds about the house. Among these were two poplar trees which we had carefully nursed for five years, and they were growing fine. One of them was directly in front of the cottage and twenty feet from the steps. It was six inches in diameter. The other tree was four inches in diameter and about thirty feet from one side of the house.
A mile up the lake was a large beaver house. The shores near this house on both sides of the lake, were lined with poplar trees and an island near by was covered with them. One night a beaver from this colony came down the lake and cut down the poplar tree in front of our door, cut it into suitable lengths and towed it back up the lake to his house. In the morning all that was left where my tree stood, was a stump and some chips. The following night he came again and cut the other tree. He must have made several trips to tow back to his storage pile the lumber he cut at my front door.
I have devoted some time to speculating as to the motive that might conceivably actuate a perfectly sane and intelligent beaver to haul his lumber more than a mile, when in doing so he would have to pass by hundreds of other equally good trees, many of them within a few rods of his house. The only reasonable answer I have been able to secure to this conundrum is that the beaver probably thought it would be a good joke on me; and I have a mental picture of him laughing in his sleeve as he dragged the logs down the bank in front of my door while I slept.
Early in October, a few years ago, Bige and I were entertaining three guests at our Cherry Pond camp. For two days we had been hunting with indifferent success. Awakening quite early one morning, I took my rifle and leaving the other members of the party audibly sleeping on the balsam, tiptoed out of camp and down the trail. A log-road paralleled the shore of the pond and I wandered down this road, hoping to get an early morning shot at a deer. It was still quite dark and I found that the sights on my gun were still invisible in the dim light, so I sat on a log and waited for the first yellow light to appear over East Inlet Mountain. Then, continuing my silent, stalking way, when opposite the mouth of the river, I heard curious and unusual sounds. Peering through the bushes across the slough I saw a black bear. He was on top of the beaver house and with his claws was tearing out sticks, brush and sod and throwing them in every direction. The bear was very busy and with great energy and determination he was proceeding to dig out the Chief Engineer. Of course I knew that the Chief was in no personal danger, as he had a perfectly safe way of retreat open, under water. But I could not stand idly by and see his roof torn off: so I took careful aim and fired. The bear tumbled down the steep slope of the beaver house and I had visions of bear steak, etc., etc. But he immediately got on his feet and wallowed through the slough to the shore. As he crossed the log-road headed toward the woods I fired again and the second time the bear fell. It did not take him long to recover his balance and start at high speed up the steep hillside. About ten rods from where I stood, the bear came into an opening in the bushes which had once been a skid-way for logs; here he stopped, put his fore paws up on a log and looked back at me. "Now," I said, to the trees and bushes, "he's coming back to argue with me." Before he started, however, the third shot cut a bunch of hair off of his shoulder and he resumed his journey up the mountain and I went back to camp.
The racket made by three shots in the early morning had suddenly interrupted the camp chorus, and I was greeted with the inquiry, "Where's the deer?"