the water. Thus,
should their pond be drained suddenly, they could escape by the canals
to their emergency homes beneath the bank.

Other beavers worked in the aspen grove, felling trees and cutting them
into lengths that could be pushed or pulled or rolled to the bank and
floated down the stream. Their work was impeded by the jamming of the
logs in a narrow rocky neck down which they had to be skidded into the
water.

Then the engineers decided upon the construction of a canal around the
rocky falls. They started digging at a point upstream, beyond the
troublesome neck, swung outward, away from the water to the fringe of
aspens, then back again to the stream below the rocks. In all the
canal was two hundred feet long, about two feet wide and averaged
fifteen inches deep. For a time all other work was suspended, and
night and day the whole population toiled on the canal. Apparently
each beaver had his own section to dig, and each went about his work in
his own way. With tooth and claw they worked. Often they cut slides
or runways down the sides of the canal giving them roads up which they
carried their loose dirt.

For thirty-seven nights they toiled in the dry ditch, then turned water
in, and completed the work of deepening the canal. This transportation
system saved them much labor and delay, and provided a safe route to
and from the grove, for they could dive into the water when their
enemies attacked.

I suspected Mr. and Mrs. Peg directed the storing away of that wood,
for it was piled in the deep water beside the house, now rising
majestically several feet about the level of the pool, just as they
always did theirs. The green wood was almost as heavy as the water,
and required little weight to force it under. Thus they always had
some food in their icebox, where they could reach it handily when the
pool froze over. I have observed other beavers on larger streams come
out of their tunnels in the banks and find food along the shores
throughout the winter months. But the smaller the stream the closer
the beaver sticks to his pond. This I believe is a matter of safety
for beavers are slow travelers, and if they venture far from their pool
they fall easy prey to such enemies as bobcats, coyotes, wolves and
mountain lions.

One day while following one of the small tributaries of the St. Vrain
River south of Long's Peak, I heard a loud explosion just ahead of me,
and when I emerged from the fringing