m the enemy of these creatures that were passing his
hiding-place in the night. A fish-feeder, he was born to be a conserver
as well as a destroyer of the creatures on which he fed. Perhaps nature
told him that too many beaver dams stopped the run of spawning fish and
that where there were many beavers there were always few fish. Maybe he
reasoned as to why fish-hunting was poor and he went hungry. So, unable
to cope singly with whole tribes of his enemies, he worked to destroy
their dams. How this, in turn, destroyed the beavers will be seen in the
feud in which nature had already schemed that he should play a part with
Kazan and Gray Wolf.

A dozen times during this night Broken Tooth halted to investigate the
food supplies along the banks. But in the two or three places where he
found plenty of the bark on which they lived it would have been
difficult to have constructed a dam. His wonderful engineering instincts
rose even above food instincts. And when each time he moved onward, no
beaver questioned his judgment by remaining behind. In the early dawn
they crossed the burn and came to the edge of the swamp domain of Kazan
and Gray Wolf. By right of discovery and possession that swamp belonged
to the dog and the wolf. In every part of it they had left their mark of
ownership. But Broken Tooth was a creature of the water and the scent of
his tribe was not keen. He led on, traveling more slowly when they
entered the timber. Just below the windfall home of Kazan and Gray Wolf
he halted, and clambering ashore balanced himself upright on his webbed
hindfeet and broad four-pound tail. Here he had found ideal conditions.
A dam could be constructed easily across the narrow stream, and the
water could be made to flood a big supply of poplar, birch, willow and
alder. Also the place was sheltered by heavy timber, so that the winters
would be warm. Broken Tooth quickly gave his followers to understand
that this was to be their new home. On both sides of the stream they
swarmed into the near-by timber. The babies began at once to nibble
hungrily at the tender bark of willow and alder. The older ones, every
one of them now a working engineer, investigated excitedly, breakfasting
by nibbling off a mouthful of bark now and then.

That day the work of home-building began. Broken Tooth himself selected
a big birch that leaned over the stream, and began the work of cutting
through the ten-inch butt with his three long teeth. Though the