Post 01694
Created:
Modified:
A few days later the lowest of the three colonies on the Cascade streamlet was also abandoned. Two days before leaving home the beaver had commenced to harvest aspen for winter food. A few aspens were standing partly cut; a number untrimmed were lying where they fell; several had been dragged into the pond. But suddenly the beaver deserted the place.
The fifteen or sixteen in this colony went down-stream and took possession of an old and abandoned house and pond. They hastily repaired the dam and the house, and they had only just begun to gather supplies for the winter when the pond froze over. In the bottom of the pond, below the ice, there may have been an abundance of the tuberous growths of the pond-lily or a supply of intruding willow roots; both of these the beaver often dig out even while the pond is frozen over. These beaver in this old pond may have pieced out their scanty food-supply with these roots and endured until springtime; but I fear that at best they had a close squeak.
One brook went dry and the beaver folk on it moved up-stream. They left the dam well repaired, a new house, and a pile of green aspen cuttings in the pond. They were ready for winter when the water-failure forced them to find a new home. They scooped out a small basin by a spring in the top of a moraine, used the material for a dam, and into the pond thus formed dragged a few aspens and willows. A winter den was dug in the bank.