The Chief Engineer Part 2

The branches that remained above the surface were cut off and carried to the storage pile. Those that were under water were left and were cut off under the ice during the following winter.

Beavers are generally peaceable. They have many admirable traits.

Individuals of one colony will a.s.sist those of another in strenuous operations much as pioneer humans helped each other in building log cabins, in barn raisings, etc. Many tales are told. One, of a family whose house had been destroyed, being taken into another's house and the two families living together all winter. Another story relates how a mother beaver was killed, when another immediately adopted the five orphans and brought them up with her own children. We have recorded above, instances where the Chief Engineer was contributing his remarkable skill and experience toward solving the problems of his friends in widely separated parts of the forest. And we believe he did not insist upon union rules in regard to wage, hours of labor, or minimum output.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Tree 18 Inches in Diameter Partly Cut by Beaver]

Our observations justify the belief that at least some beavers have a sense of humor. We mention two incidents in support of the theory.

One day on the big lake, near the hotel, I saw two girls about twelve years of age, in a canoe. These girls were chasing a beaver. The beaver was swimming on the surface and he was more than half a mile from his house. He could easily have outdistanced the canoe and got away from it, but he chose to swim slowly and allow the canoe to approach until the girls might have touched him with a paddle, when he would hump himself, slap the water with his tail, thus throwing showers of spray over the girls, while he dived under the canoe and presently came to the surface in some new and unexpected position.

The girls, of course, with screams and excited shouts frantically swung the canoe into position and started the chase over again; while the beaver loafed along until they caught up. This game of tag, played by the girls and the beaver I watched for twenty minutes or more and each time the girls came near enough to the animal he managed to throw water on them. I feel certain that he enjoyed the game quite as much as the two girls, and while I did not hear the beaver laugh, I thought I saw a grin on his face.

The cottage where our family live during the summer, stands on a bank about thirty feet above the water and fifty feet from the sh.o.r.e of the lake. A number of shade trees have been planted on the grounds about the house. Among these were two poplar trees which we had carefully nursed for five years, and they were growing fine. One of them was directly in front of the cottage and twenty feet from the steps. It was six inches in diameter. The other tree was four inches in diameter and about thirty feet from one side of the house.

A mile up the lake was a large beaver house. The sh.o.r.es near this house on both sides of the lake, were lined with poplar trees and an island near by was covered with them. One night a beaver from this colony came down the lake and cut down the poplar tree in front of our door, cut it into suitable lengths and towed it back up the lake to his house. In the morning all that was left where my tree stood, was a stump and some chips. The following night he came again and cut the other tree. He must have made several trips to tow back to his storage pile the lumber he cut at my front door.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Cottage]

I have devoted some time to speculating as to the motive that might conceivably actuate a perfectly sane and intelligent beaver to haul his lumber more than a mile, when in doing so he would have to pa.s.s by hundreds of other equally good trees, many of them within a few rods of his house. The only reasonable answer I have been able to secure to this conundrum is that the beaver probably thought it would be a good joke on me; and I have a mental picture of him laughing in his sleeve as he dragged the logs down the bank in front of my door while I slept.

Early in October, a few years ago, Bige and I were entertaining three guests at our Cherry Pond camp. For two days we had been hunting with indifferent success. Awakening quite early one morning, I took my rifle and leaving the other members of the party audibly sleeping on the balsam, tiptoed out of camp and down the trail. A log-road paralleled the sh.o.r.e of the pond and I wandered down this road, hoping to get an early morning shot at a deer. It was still quite dark and I found that the sights on my gun were still invisible in the dim light, so I sat on a log and waited for the first yellow light to appear over East Inlet Mountain. Then, continuing my silent, stalking way, when opposite the mouth of the river, I heard curious and unusual sounds. Peering through the bushes across the slough I saw a black bear. He was on top of the beaver house and with his claws was tearing out sticks, brush and sod and throwing them in every direction. The bear was very busy and with great energy and determination he was proceeding to dig out the Chief Engineer. Of course I knew that the Chief was in no personal danger, as he had a perfectly safe way of retreat open, under water. But I could not stand idly by and see his roof torn off: so I took careful aim and fired. The bear tumbled down the steep slope of the beaver house and I had visions of bear steak, etc., etc. But he immediately got on his feet and wallowed through the slough to the sh.o.r.e. As he crossed the log-road headed toward the woods I fired again and the second time the bear fell. It did not take him long to recover his balance and start at high speed up the steep hillside. About ten rods from where I stood, the bear came into an opening in the bushes which had once been a skid-way for logs; here he stopped, put his fore paws up on a log and looked back at me. "Now," I said, to the trees and bushes, "he's coming back to argue with me." Before he started, however, the third shot cut a bunch of hair off of his shoulder and he resumed his journey up the mountain and I went back to camp.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Bear Wrecking Beaver House]

The racket made by three shots in the early morning had suddenly interrupted the camp chorus, and I was greeted with the inquiry, "Where's the deer?"

"That deer," said I, "is a bear, and he's big as a horse. I left him up in the woods. We'll go and get him after breakfast."

Bige allowed that "if it really was a bear, he wasn't hurt much. You couldn't kill a bear with that pop-gun. (I was using a Winchester 30). Why, a bear's hide is thicker than sole-leather and this time of year he has an armor-plate of fat under it, six inches thick. You might as well try to shoot a hole through a feather pillow. If you are going to hunt bear, take an elephant-gun--a 45-90."

After breakfast, we all started out on the trail of the bear. We found blood spots in the log-road. We also measured a foot print in a soft place in the path. It was twelve inches in diameter. Broken bushes, blood spots on fallen trees and on leaves marked his route up the steep slope. Half way up the mountain on a big ledge of rocks, covered with moss, the bear had been lying down. A pool of blood marked the spot. Also, numerous tufts of moss torn from the rock and saturated with blood were scattered about. Apparently the bear had pulled up handfuls of the soft moss and used it in the same manner that a surgeon uses lint.

Bige suggested, "This is a first aid station for bears; but if you should tell anyone what you have seen here, you will be put in the cla.s.s of Nature Fakirs."

We followed the bear's trail from the mossy rock up to the top of the mountain and had started down the other side when it began to rain.

In a few minutes the rain had washed away the red stains and we lost the trail and returned to camp. But that bear is going yet. Also, he is carrying with him three bullets that belong to me. Some day, somewhere in the woods, I expect to meet him again, when I shall take those bullets away from him.

It is now seventeen years since we first met the Chief Engineer. He still retains the monopoly of his trade mark. Within our knowledge, no other beaver has appeared with a white spot on his head. But the Chief shows his age. His brown coat of fur looks faded and grey, and the white spot is less conspicuous. The Chief was a member of the first colony installed for the purpose of restocking the northern forests; and he has contributed his share, both to increasing the inhabitants and to rebuilding beaver industries. Every season a new family of four to seven beavers have been sent out from his home to start other families, and so they have multiplied in a sort of geometrical progression until now they cover many hundreds of square miles of forest land and water. Early in 1920 the Conservation Commissioner of the State of New York estimated that there were more than twenty thousand beavers in the Adirondack region. My guess is that this estimate is much too low.

One day last summer, Bige and I saw the Chief Engineer dive and enter a tunnel leading to his house. We silently paddled up close to the house and listened. Presently we heard a murmur of beaver conversation inside. "Gos.h.!.+" said Bige, "the old Chief is giving instructions to the kid beavers. He's telling 'em how to handle the job they have to do tonight."

END OF THE CHIEF ENGINEER