beavers dwelt warm and safe.

But it was not from the scourge of the northern cold alone, and the
ferocity of their enemies, that the beavers were protected by their
ice-roof and their frozen dome. The winter's famine, too, they had well
guarded themselves against. Before the coming of the frost, they had
gnawed down great quantities of birch, poplar, and willow, cut them into
convenient, manageable lengths, and dragged them to a spot a little
above the centre of the dam, where the water was deepest. Here the store
of logs, poles, and brush made a tangled mass from the bottom up to the
ice. When it was feeding-time in the hidden chamber of the lodge, a
beaver would swim to the brush pile, pull out a suitable stick, and drag
it into the chamber. Here the family would feast at their ease, in the
dry, pungent gloom, eating the bark and the delicate outer layer of
young wood. When the stick was stripped clean, another beaver would drag
it out and tow it down to the dam, there to await its final use as
material for repairs. Every member of the colony was blest with a good
appetite, and there was nearly always at least one beaver to be seen
swimming through the amber gloom, either with a green stick from the
brush pile, or a white stripped one to deposit on the base of the dam.

For these most diligent of all the four-foot kindreds this was holiday
time. Under the ice-roof they had no dam-building, no tree-cutting, no
house-repairing. There was nothing to do but eat, sleep, and play. There
was not much variety to their play, to be sure; but the monotony of it
did not trouble them. Sometimes two would indulge in a sort of mad game
of tag, swimming at marvellous speed close beneath the ice, their
powerful hind legs propelling them, their tiny little fore paws held up
demurely under their chins, and their broad, flat, hairless tails
stretched straight out behind to act as rudders. As they swam this way
and that, they loosed a trail of silvery bubbles behind them, from the
air carried under their close fur. At last one of the players, unable
to hold his breath any longer, would whisk sharply into the mouth of the
black tunnel leading into the lodge, scurry up into the chamber, and lie
there panting, to be joined a moment later by his equally breathless
pursuer. One by one the other members of the colony would dip in, till
the low chamber was full of furry, snuggling warmth and well-fed
content. Little cared the beavers whether i