ing ice that told of runways below, that other stakes might
be driven down. The rapping sound, however, instead of driving the
beavers out of their lodge, had a tendency to make them remain at home,
for as Oo-koo-hoo explained, cutting ice and working around their homes
does not always frighten the beavers.

Securing two stouter poles, the hunters now chopped the butts into
wedge-shaped chisels, with which they proposed to break open the
beavers' lodge. Work was begun about a foot above the level of the
snow on the south side, as they explained that the lodge would not only
be thinner on that side, but that the sun would make it slightly
softer, too--and before much headway was made the dogs, all alert,
discovered that several of the beavers had rushed out of their house,
but finding the passageways blocked had returned home.

Now, strange to say, as soon as the side of the house was broken open
and daylight let in, the beavers, becoming curious over the inflowing
light that dazzled their eyes, actually came toward the newly made hole
to investigate. Then Oo-koo-hoo, with the aid of a crooked stick,
suddenly jerked one of the unsuspecting animals out of the hole and
Amik knocked it on the head. Thus they secured four large ones, but
left a number of smaller ones unharmed, as Oo-koo-hoo never made a
practice of taking a whole family.

In that house the portion of the chamber used for sleeping quarters was
covered with a thick mattress of dry "snake-grass," and the whole
interior was remarkably clean. After blocking and patching up the hole
and covering the place with snow, the hunters threw water over it until
it froze into a solid mass, then they removed the stakes from the
runways and left the rest of the beavers in peace. Loading their catch
upon their toboggans, all set out for home.

BEAVER DAMS AND CANALS

Resides erecting their remarkably strong houses there are two other
ways in which the beavers display wonderful skill: in the building of
their dams and in the excavating of their canals. Their dams are built
for the purpose of retarding, raising, and storing water, in order--in
summer time--to circumvent their enemies by placing a well-watered moat
between their foe and their castle; also to flood a wider area so that
the far-reaching waters of their pond may lap close to the roots of
many otherwise inaccessible trees and thus enable them to fell and
float them to their lodge; and--in winter time--