“My story,” commenced the trapper, who was next called on for his promised contribution to the entertainment of the evening, “my story is of a different character from the one you have just heard. It don’t run so much to the great and terrible as the small and curious. It may appear to you perhaps a little queer, in some parts; but which, after the modest drafts that have been made on my credulity, you will, of course, have the good manners to believe. It relates to an adventure in beaver-hunting, which I met with, many years ago, on Moosehead Lake, where I served my apprenticeship at trapping. I had established myself in camp, the last of August, about the time the beavers, after having collected in communities, and established their never-failing democratic government, generally get fairly at work on their dams and dwelling-houses, for the ensuing cold months, in places along the small streams, which they have looked out and decided on for the purpose. I was thus early on the ground, in order to have time, before I went to other hunting, to look up the localities of the different societies, so that I need not blunder on them and disturb them, in the chase for other animals, and so that I should know where to find them, when their fur got thick enough to warrant the onslaught upon them which I designed to make.
“In hunting for these localities in the vicinity around me, I soon unexpectedly discovered marks of what I thought must be a very promising one, situated on a small stream, not over half a mile in a bee-line over the hills from my camp. When I discovered the place,—as I did from encountering, at short intervals in the woods, two wolverines, always the great enemy and generally the prowling attendant of assembled beavers,—these curious creatures had just begun to lay the foundation of their dam. And the place being so near, and the nights moon-light, I concluded I would go over occasionally, evenings,—the night being the only time when they can ever be seen engaged on their work,—and see if I could gain some covert near the bank, where, unperceived, I might watch their operations, and obtain some new knowledge of their habits, of which I might thereafter avail myself, when the season for hunting them arrived. Accordingly, I went over that very evening, in the twilight, secured a favorable lookout, and laid in wait for the appearance of the beavers. Presently I was startled by a loud rap, as of a small paddle struck flatwise on the water, then another, and another, in quick succession. It was the signal of the master workman, for all the workers to leave their hiding-places in the banks, and repair to their labors in making the dam. The next moment the whole stream seemed to be alive with the numbers in motion. I could hear them, sousing and plunging in the water, in every direction,—then swimming and puffing across or up and down the stream,—then scrambling up the banks,—then the auger-like sound of their sharp teeth, at work on the small trees,—then soon the falling of the trees,—then the rustling and tugging of the creatures, in getting the fallen trees out of the water,—and, finally, the surging and splashing with which they came swimming towards the groundwork of the dam, with the butt end of those trees in their mouths. The line of the dam they had begun, passed with a curve up stream in the middle, so as to give it more strength to resist the current; across the low-water bed of the river some five rods; and extended up over the first low bank, about as much farther, to a second and higher bank, which must have bounded the water at the greatest floods. They had already cut, drawn on, and put down, a double layer of trees, with their butts brought up evenly to the central line, and their tops pointing in opposite directions,—those of one layer, or row, pointing up, and those of the other, down stream. Among and under this line of butts had been worked in an extra quantity of limbs, old wood, and short bushes, so as to give the centre an elevation of a foot or two, over the lowest part of the sides, which, of course, fell off considerably each way in the lessening of the tops of the trees, thus put down. Over all these they had plastered mud, mixed in with stones, grass, and moss, so thick as not only to hold down securely the bodies of the trees, but nearly conceal them from sight.
“Scarcely had I time to glance over these works, which I had not approached near enough to inspect much, before the beavers from below, and above came tugging along, by dozens on a side to the lower edges of their embankment, with the loads or rafts of trees which they had respectively drawn to the spot. Lodging these on the solid ground, with the ends just out of water, they relinquished their holds, mounted the slopes, paused a minute to take breath, and then, seizing these ends again, drew them, with the seeming strength of horses, out of the water and up to the central line on top; laid the stems or bodies of the trees parallel, and as near together as they could be got; and adjusted the butt ends, as I have stated they did with the foundation layers, so as to bring them to a sort of joint on the top. They then all went off for new loads, with the exception of a small squad, a part of which were still holding their trees in a small space in the dam, where the current had not been checked, and the other part bringing stones, till they had confined the trees down to the bottom, so that they would not be swept away. This task of filling the gap, however, after some severe struggling with the current, was before long accomplished; when those engaged upon it joined in the common work, in which they steadily persevered till this second double layer of trees, with the large quantities of short bushes which they brought and wove into the chinks, near the top, was completed, through the whole length of their dam. They then collected along on the top of the dam, and seemed to hold a sort of consultation, after which they scattered for the banks of the stream, but soon returned, walking on their hind legs, and each bringing a load of mud or stones, held between his fore paws and throat. These loads were successively deposited, as they came up, among the stems and interlacing branches of the trees and bushes they had just laid down, giving each deposited pile, as they turned to go back, a smart blow with the flat of their broad thick tails, producing the same sound as the one I have mentioned as the signal-raps for calling them out to work, only far less loud and sharp, since the former raps were struck on water, and the latter on mud or rubbish. Thus they continued to work,—and work, too, with a will, if any creatures ever did,—till I had seen nearly the whole of the last layers plastered over.
“Thinking now I had seen all that would be new and useful to me, I noiselessly crept away and returned to camp, to lay awake half the night, in my excitement, and to dream, the other half, about this magnificent society of beavers, whose numbers I could not make less than three dozen. I did not go to steal another view of the place for nearly a week, and then went in the daytime, there now being no moon, till late,—when, to my surprise, I found the dam finished, and the river flowed into a pond of several acres, while on each side, ranged along, one after another, stood three family dwellings in different states of progress; some of them only rising to the surface of the water, showing the nature of the structure, which, you know, is built up with short, small logs, and mud, in a squarish form, of about the size of a large chimney; while others, having been built up a foot or two above the water, and the windows fashioned, had been arched over with mud and sticks, and were already nearly finished.
“Knowing that the establishment was now so nearly completed that the beavers would not relinquish it without being disturbed by the presence of a human foe,—which they will sometimes detect, I think, at nearly a quarter of a mile distance,—I concluded to keep entirely away from them till the time of my contemplated onslaught, which I finally decided to begin on one of the first days of the coming November.
“Well, what with hunting deer, bear, and so on, for food, and lynx, otter, and sable, for furs, the next two months passed away, and the long anticipated November at length arrived; when, one dark, cloudy day, having cut a lot of bits of green wood for bait, got out my vial of castor to scent them with, and got my steel traps in order, with these equipments and my rifle I set off, for the purpose of commencing operations, of some kind, on my community of beavers. On reaching the spot, I crept to my old covert with the same precautions I had used on my former visits, thinking it likely enough that, on so dark a day, some of the beavers might be out; and, wishing to know how this was, before proceeding openly along the banks to look out the right places to set my traps, I listened a while, but could hear no splashing about the pond, or detect any other sounds indicating that the creatures were astir; but, on peering out, I saw a large, old beaver perched in a window of one of the beaver-houses on the opposite shore. I instinctively drew up my rifle,—for it was a fair shot, and I knew I could draw him,—but I forbore, and contented myself with watching his motions. I might have lain there ten minutes, perhaps, when this leader, or judge in the beaver Israel, as he soon showed himself to be, quietly slid out into the water, swam into a central part of the pond, and, after swimming twice or three times round in a small circle, lifted his tail on high, and slowly and deliberately gave three of those same old loud and startling raps on the water. He then swam back to his cabin, and ascended an open flat on the bank, where all the underbrush had been cut and cleared off in building the dam. In a few minutes more, a large number of beavers might be seen hastening to the spot, where they ranged themselves in a sort of circle, so as just to inclose the old beaver which came first, and which had now taken his stand on a little moss hillock, on the farther side of the little opening, to which he had thus called them, and, evidently, for some important public purpose. Soon another small band of the creatures made their appearance on the bank above, seeming to have in custody two great, lubberly, cowed-down looking beavers, that they were hunching and driving along, as legal officers sometimes have to do with their prisoners, when taking them to some dreaded punishment. When this last band reached the place, with these two culprit-looking fellows, they pushed them forward in front of the judge, as we will call him, and then fell into the ranks, so as to close up the circle. There was then a long, solemn pause, in which they all kept still in their places round the prisoners, which had crouched sneaking down, without stirring an inch from the places where they had been put. Soon, however, a great, fierce, gruff-appearing beaver left the ranks, and, advancing a few steps within them, reared himself on his haunches, and began to sputter and gibber away at a great rate, making his fore-paws go like the hands of some over-heated orator; now motioning respectfully towards the judge, and now spitefully towards the prisoners, as if he was making bitter accusations, and demanding judgment against them. After this old fellow had got through, two or three others, in turn, came forward, and appeared also to be holding forth about the matter, but in a far milder manner than the other, which I now began much to dislike for his spitefulness, and in the same proportion to pity the two poor objects of his evident malice. There was then another long and silent pause, after which, the judge proceeded to utter what appeared to be his sentence; and, having brought it to a conclusion, he gave a rap with his tail on the ground. At this signal, the beavers in the ranks advanced, one after another, in rapid succession toward the prisoners, and, circling round them once, turned and gave each one of them a tremendous blow with their tails over the head and shoulders; and so the heavy blows rapidly fell, whack, whack, whack, till every beaver had taken his part in the punishment, and till the poor prisoners keeled over, and lay nearly or quite dead on the ground. The judge beaver then quietly left his stand and went off; and, following his example, all the rest scattered and disappeared, except the spiteful old fellow that had so raised my dislike, by the rancor he displayed in pressing his accusations, and, afterwards, by giving the culprits an extra blow, when it came his turn to strike them. He now remained on the ground till all the rest were out of sight, when,—as if to make sure of finishing what little remains of life the others, in their compunction, might have left in the victims, so as to give them, if they were not quite killed by the terrible bastinadoing they had received, a chance to revive and crawl off,—he ran up, and began to belabor them with the greatest fury over the head. This mean and malicious addition to the old fellow’s previously unfair conduct was too much for me to witness, and I instantly drew my rifle and laid him dead beside the bodies he was so rancorously beating. Wading the stream below the dam, I hastened to my prizes, finished their last struggles with a stick, seized them by their tails, and dragged them to the spot I had just left; and then, after concealing my traps, with the view of waiting a few days before I set them, so as to give the society a chance to get settled, I tugged the game I had so strangely come by, home to camp, where a more particular examination showed them to be the three largest and best-furred beavers I had ever taken.
“This brings me to the end of the unaccountable affair, and all I can say in explanation of it; for how these creatures, ingenious and knowing as they are, should have the intelligence to make laws,—as this case seems to pre-suppose,—get up a regular court, try, sentence, and execute offenders; what these offenders had done,—whether they were thievish interlopers from some other society, or whether they had committed some crime, such as burglary, bigamy, or adultery, or high treason, or whether they had been dishonest office-holders in the society and plundered the common treasury, is a mystery which you can solve as well as I. Certainly you cannot be more puzzled than I have always been, in giving the matter a satisfactory explanation.
“And now, in conclusion, if you wish to know how I afterwards succeeded in taking more of this notable society of beavers, I have only to say, that, having soon commenced operations anew, I took, before I quit the ground that fall, by rifle, by traps, by digging or hooking them out of their hiding places in the banks, and, finally, by breaking up their dwelling-houses, twenty-one beavers in all; making the best lot which I ever had the pleasure of carrying out of the woods, and for which, a month or two after, I was paid, in market, one hundred and sixty-eight hard dollars.”