, infested by parasites and turned off to house in the river
holes; or fat, selfish ladies, who don't want the trouble of training a
family. Whatever these solitaries are--naturalists and hunters
differ--they have the wit to keep alive; but the poor little beavers
rush right into the jaws of death. Why do they? For the same reason
probably, if they could answer, that people trample each other to death
when there is an alarm in a crowd.

* * * * *

They cower in the terrible pen, knowing nothing at all about their hides
being valued all the way from fifty cents to three dollars, according to
the quality; nothing about the dignity of being a coin of the realm in
the Northern wilderness, where one beaver-skin sets the value for mink,
otter, marten, bear, and all other skins, one pound of tobacco, one
kettle, five pounds of shot, a pint of brandy, and half a yard of cloth;
nothing about the rascally Indians long ago bartering forty of their
hides for a scrap of iron and a great company sending one hundred
thousand beaver-skins in a single year to make hats and cloaks for the
courtiers of Europe; nothing about the laws of man forbidding the
killing of beaver till their number increase.

All the little beaver remembers is that it opened its eyes to daylight
in the time of soft, green grasses; and that as soon as it got strong
enough on a milk diet to travel, the mother led the whole family of
kittens--usually three or four--down the slanting doorway of their dim
house for a swim; and that she taught them how to nibble the dainty,
green shrubs along the bank; and then the entire colony went for the
most glorious, pell-mell splash up-stream to fresh ponds. No more
sleeping in that stifling lodge; but beds in soft grass like a
goose-nest all night, and tumbling in the water all day, diving for the
roots of the lily-pads. But the old mother is always on guard, for the
wolves and bears are ravenous in spring. Soon the cubs can cut the
hardening bark of alder and willow as well as their two-year-old
brothers; and the wonderful thing is--if a tooth breaks, it grows into
perfect shape inside of a week.

By August the little fellows are great swimmers, and the colony begins
the descent of the stream for their winter home. If unmolested, the old
dam is chosen; but if the hated man-smell is there, new waterways are
sought. Burrows and washes and channels and retreats are cleaned out.
Trees are cut and