partial to mutton; I think,
on the whole, that they like pigs better. I wish we could get the fence
up round the prairie, but that we never can do this year without we have
help from the fort."

"But will it be safe to turn the cows into the bush?"

"Oh, yes, sir, they will not be hurt by anything in the summer-time;
sometimes we have trouble to find them again, but not when they have
calves; they are certain to come home every evening to their young
ones."

"We shall have quite a herd of cattle; eight calves and eight cows."

"We must only bring up the cow calves, unless your father intends to
have oxen for the yoke. We shall require them about the time they are
fit to break in, that is, in two or three years."

"Yes, we shall be great farmers by-and-bye," replied Alfred, with a
sigh; for at the moment he was thinking of Captain Lumley and his
nautical profession.

In the evening of the day on which this conversation took place, Malachi
Bone was requested to resume his observations upon the beavers.

"Well, ma'am, as I said the other night, as soon as they have dammed up
the river and made the lake, they then build their houses; and how they
manage to work under water and fix the posts in the ground is a puzzle
to me, but they do fix six posts in the ground, and very firmly, and
then they build their house, which is very curious; it is in the form of
a large oven, and made of clay and fat earth, mixed up with branches and
herbs of all sorts; they have three sets of rooms one above the other,
so that if the water rises from a freshet or sudden thaw, they may be
able to move higher and keep themselves dry. Each beaver has his own
little room, and the entrance is made under the water, so that they dive
down to go into it, and nothing can harm them."

"How very curious, and what do they live upon, Malachi?"

"The bark of what we call asp-wood, ma'am, which is a kind of sallow;
they lay up great quantities of it in the autumn as a provision for
winter, when they are frozen up for some months."

"Well, but how do you take them, Malachi?"

"There are many ways, ma'am; sometimes the Indians break down the dam,
and let off the water, and then they kill them all except a dozen of the
females and half a dozen males; after which they stop up the dam again,
that the animals may breed and increase; sometimes, when the beaver lake
is frozen hard, they break into the beaver house from the top; when they
do that, the b