Charles Roberts - The House in the Water - A Book of Animal Stories

WHEN the Boy came creeping down the hillside, and found the water in the canal still muddy and foaming, he realized that he had just missed a chance to see the beavers actually at work on their ditch-digging. He was disappointed. But he found ample compensation in the fact that here was one of the much-discussed and sometimes doubted canals, actually in process of construction. He knew he could outdo the beavers in their own game of wariness and watchfulness. He made up his mind he would lie out that very night, on the hillside close by–and so patiently, so unstirringly, that the beavers would never suspect the eager eyes that were upon them.

All around him, on the nearer slopes, were evidences of the purpose for which the canal was designed, as well as of the diligence with which the little people of the pond were labouring to get in their winter stores. From this diligence, so early in the season, the Boy argued an early and severe winter. He found trees of every size up to two feet in diameter cleanly felled, and stripped of their branches. With two or three exceptions–probably the work of young beavers unskilled in their art–the trees were felled unerringly in the direction of the water, so as to minimize the labour of dragging down the cuttings. Close to the new part of the canal, he found the tree whose falling he and Jabe had heard the night before. It was a tall yellow birch, fully twenty inches through at the place where it was cut, some fifteen inches from the ground. The cutting was still fresh and sappy. About half the branches had been gnawed off and trimmed, showing that the beavers, after being disturbed by the Boy’s visit to the dam, had returned to work later in the night. Much of the smaller brush, from the top, had been cleared away and dragged down to the edge of the canal. As the Boy knew, from what trappers and woodsmen had told him, this brush, and a lot more like it, would all be anchored in a huge pile in mid-channel, a little above the dam, where it would serve the double purpose of breaking the force of the floods and of supplying food through the winter.

Very near the newly felled birch the Boy found another large tree about half cut through; and he vowed to himself that he would see the finish of that job that very night. He found the cutting done pretty evenly all around the tree, but somewhat lower and deeper on the side next to the water. In width the cut was less than that which a good axeman would make–because the teeth of a beaver are a more frugal cutting instrument than the woodsman’s axe, making possible a straighter and less wasteful cut. At the foot of this tree he picked up chips fully eight inches in length, and was puzzled to imagine how the beavers imitated the effect of the axe in making the chips fly off.

For a couple of hours the Boy busied himself joyously, observing the work of these cunning woodsmen’s teeth, noting the trails by which the remoter cuttings had been dragged down to the water, and studying the excavations on the canal. Then, fearing to make the little citizens of the pond so nervous that they might not come out to business that night, he withdrew over the slope and made his way back to camp. He would sleep out the rest of the afternoon to be fresh and keen for the night’s watching.

At supper that evening, beside the camp-fire, when the woods looked magical under the still, white moon, Jabe Smith gradually got fired with the Boy’s enthusiasm. The Boy’s descriptions of the canal digging, of the structure of the dam, and, above all, of the battle between the otter and the beavers, filled him with a new eagerness to observe these wonderful little engineers with other eyes than those of the mere hunter and trapper. In the face of all the Boy’s exact details he grew almost deferential, quite laying aside his usual backwoods pose of indifference and half derision. He made no move to go to bed, but refilled his pipe and watched his young comrade’s face with shrewd, bright eyes grown suddenly boyish.

At last the Boy rose and picked up his rifle.

“I must hurry up and get myself hidden,” said he, “or I’ll see nothing to-night. Good night, Jabe. I’ll not be back, likely, till along toward morning.”

The backwoodsman’s usual response was not forthcoming. For some seconds he fingered his rugged chin in silence. Then, straightening himself up, he spoke with an air of mingled embarrassment and carelessness.

“Them beaver of yourn’s certainly an interestin’ kind of varmint. D’ye know, blam’d if I ain’t got a notion to go along with you to-night, an’ watch ’em myself!”

The Boy, though secretly delighted at this evidence of something like conversion, eyed Jabe doubtfully. He was not sure of the latter’s capacity for the tireless patience and long self-effacement necessary for such an adventure as this.

“Well, Jabe,” he answered hesitatingly, “you know well how more than glad I’d be of your company. It would just about double my fun, having you along, if you were really interested, as I am, you know. And are you sure you could keep still long enough to see anything?”

Jabe would have resented this halting acceptance of his companionship had he not known in his heart that it was nothing more than he well deserved. But the doubt cast upon his woodcraft piqued him.

“Hain’t I never set for hours in the wet ma’sh, never movin’ a finger, waitin’ for the geese?” he asked with injury in his voice. “Hain’t I never sneaked up on a watchin’ buck, or laid so still I’ve fooled a bear?”

The Boy chuckled softly at this outbreak, so unexpected in the taciturn and altogether superior Jabe.

“You’re all right, Jabe!” said he. “I reckon you can keep still. But you must let me be captain, for to-night! This is my trick.”

“Sartain,” responded the woodsman with alacrity. “I’ll eat mud if you say so! But I’ll take along a hunk of cold bacon if you hain’t got no objection.”

On the trail through the ghostly, moonlit woods, Jabe followed obediently at the Boy’s heels. Silently as shadows they moved, silently as the lynx or the moose or the weasel goes through the softly parting undergrowth. The Boy led far away from the brook, and over the crest of the ridge, to avoid alarming the vigilant sentries. As they approached the head of the canal, their caution redoubled, and they went very slowly, bending low and avoiding every patch of moonlight. The light breeze, so light as to be almost imperceptible, drew upward toward them from the meadow, bringing now and then a scent of the fresh-dug soil. At last the Boy lay down on his belly; and Jabe religiously imitated him. For perhaps fifty yards they crept forward inch by inch, till at length they found themselves in the heart of a young fir thicket, through whose branches they could look out upon the head of the canal and the trees where the beavers had most recently been cutting.

Among the trees and in the water, all was still, with the mystic, crystalline stillness of the autumn moonlight. In that light everything seemed fragile and unreal, as if a movement or a breath might dissolve it. After a waiting of some ten minutes Jabe had it on the tip of his tongue to whisper, derisively, “Nothin’ doin’!” But he remembered the Boy’s injunction, as well as his doubts, and checked himself. A moment later a faint, swirling gurgle of water caught his ear, and he was glad he had kept silence. An instant more, and the form of a beaver, spectral-gray in the moonlight, took shape all at once on the brink of the canal. For several minutes it stood there motionless, erect upon its hind quarters, questioning the stillness with eyes and ear and nose. Then, satisfied that there was no danger near, it dropped on all fours and crept up toward the tree that was partly cut through.