rmous fellow, refused to go under
where he would be at a disadvantage. In my eagerness I let the canoe
drift almost upon them, driving them wildly apart before the common
danger. The otter held on his way up the lake; the beaver turned towards
the shore, where I noticed for the first time a couple of beaver houses.

In this case there was no chance for intrusion on Keeonekh's part.
He had probably been attacked when going peaceably about his business
through the lake.

It is barely possible, however, that there was an old grievance on the
beavers' part, which they sought to square when they caught Keeonekh on
the lake. When beavers build their houses on the lake shore, without the
necessity for making a dam, they generally build a tunnel slanting up
from the lake's bed to their den or house on the bank. Now Keeonekh
fishes under the ice in winter more than is generally supposed. As he
must breathe after every chase he must needs know all the air-holes and
dens in the whole lake. No matter how much he turns and doubles in
the chase after a trout, he never loses his sense of direction, never
forgets where the breathing places are. When his fish is seized he makes
a bee line under the ice for the nearest place where he can breathe and
eat. Sometimes this lands him, out of breath, in the beaver's tunnel;
and the beaver must sit upstairs in his own house, nursing his wrath,
while Keeonekh eats fish in his hallway; for there is not room for both
at once in the tunnel, and a fight there or under the ice is out of
the question. As the beaver eats only bark--the white inner layer of
"popple" bark is his chief dainty--he cannot understand and cannot
tolerate this barbarian, who eats raw fish and leaves the bones and fins
and the smell of slime in his doorway. The beaver is exemplary in his
neatness, detesting all smells and filth; and this may possibly account
for some of his enmity and his savage attacks upon Keeonekh when he
catches him in a good place.

Not the least interesting of Keeonekh's queer ways is his habit of
sliding down hill, which makes a bond of sympathy and brings him close
to the boyhood memories of those who know him.

I remember one pair of otters that I watched for the better part of a
sunny afternoon sliding down a clay bank with endless delight. The slide
had been made, with much care evidently, on the steep side of a little
promontory that jutted into the river. It was very steep, about twenty
feet hi