ed fifteen lodges and over a hundred beavers, not
counting the fourth babies which had been born during March and April.
The dam had been lengthened until it was fully two hundred yards in
length. Water had been made to flood large areas of birch and poplar and
tangled swamps of tender willow and elder. Even with this food was
growing scarce and the lodges were overcrowded. This was because
beavers are almost human in their love for home. Broken Tooth's lodge
was fully nine feet long by seven wide inside, and there were now living
in it children and grandchildren to the number of twenty-seven. For this
reason Broken Tooth was preparing to break the precedent of his tribe.
When Kazan and Gray Wolf sniffed carelessly at the strong scents of the
beaver city, Broken Tooth was marshaling his family, and two of his sons
and their families, for the exodus.

As yet Broken Tooth was the recognized leader in the colony. No other
beaver had grown to his size and strength. His thick body was fully
three feet long. He weighed at least sixty pounds. His tail was fourteen
inches in length and five in width, and on a still night he could strike
the water a blow that could be heard a quarter of a mile away. His
webbed hindfeet were twice as large as his mate's and he was easily the
swiftest swimmer in the colony.

Following the afternoon when Gray Wolf and Kazan struck into the north
came the clear still night when Broken Tooth climbed to the top of the
dam, shook himself, and looked down to see that his army was behind
him. The starlit water of the big pond rippled and flashed with the
movement of many bodies. A few of the older beavers clambered up after
Broken Tooth and the old patriarch plunged down into the narrow stream
on the other side of the dam. Now the shining silken bodies of the
emigrants followed him in the starlight. In ones and twos and threes
they climbed over the dam and with them went a dozen children born three
months before. Easily and swiftly they began the journey down-stream,
the youngsters swimming furiously to keep up with their parents. In all
they numbered forty. Broken Tooth swam well in the lead, with his older
workers and battlers behind him. In the rear followed mothers and
children.

All of that night the journey continued. The otter, their deadliest
enemy--deadlier even than man--hid himself in a thick clump of willows
as they passed. Nature, which sometimes sees beyond the vision of man,
had made hi