in the most
complete silence for the appearance of the industrious but timid
workers.

It is amazing how all animals seem to be acquainted with the natural
sounds that come from the woods or prairies, and are but little
disturbed by them, while a sound that is unnatural is at once detected.
For example, Big Tom was more than once heard to say in his quiet way
that, when hunting moose, he noticed that a storm might be raging, and
the great branches of the trees snapping and breaking in the gale, yet
the moose seemed to pay no attention to any of these sounds; but just
let the hunter be careless enough to let a dry stick snap under his
moccasined foot, and the moose was alarmed and off like a shot. So it
is with the beaver. The ordinary night sounds disturb them not, but the
report of a gun, it may be a mile away, sends them instantly to their
retreats, while the slightest evidence of hunters so disturbs them that
perhaps for twenty-four hours they will keep under cover without making
the slightest movement.

The moon was quite high up in the heavens ere the first rippling sounds
were heard upon the waters. The first arrivals seemed to be the
watchers, who had come to report. They appeared to swim almost from end
to end of the great pond that had already been made by the strong dam,
which seemed about finished.

As soon as they had in some way reported that the coast was clear,
others appeared upon the scene, until between twenty and thirty were at
the same time visible. Some were industriously employed in carrying
additional stones and mud to the dam, and carefully filling up every
crack and crevice. Others were guiding great logs down the current, and
fastening them in position where they would strengthen the dam against
possible floods and freshets. The majority, and they were principally
the smaller ones, were employed in cutting down small birch and willows,
which they dragged by their teeth to the edge of the pond, and there
they suddenly dived with them to the bottom. The pieces that they could
not firmly stick in the mud they fastened down in the bottom by piling
stones upon them to keep them from floating.

The boys were too far away to see by the moon's light the beavers
actually at work among a clump of large trees that stood on the shore
some way up the stream, but the crashing down of a couple of trees into
the water told very clearly that some were there industriously at work.
Thus for a couple