(1920) the chief engineer

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TheChiefEngineer

ByHENRY ABBOTT

NEW YORK1920


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Copyright 1920By

HENRY ABBOTT


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The Chief Engineer Uib&Henry Abbott

rwasa dark night in July very

dark. There was no moon andclouds hid the stars. We were

sitting by the camp fire. Bige had justkicked the burning logs together so thata shower of sparks shot straight up to-ward the tree-tops, indicating that therewas no wind, when he said, "If youwant to make that picture of deer thisis just the kind of a night to go for it.You must have it dark so you can getclose enough to get a good photograph.Also, this is just the kind of weatherwhen we are likely to find deer feedingnear the mouth of the river."So with camera and flash-light appar-

atus I climbed into the bow end of ourlight-weight cedar boat, while Bige withpaddle sat in the stern. We aimedtoward the mouth of the river abouthalf of a mile from camp and across

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The Chief Engineer


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the pond. No land-marks were visible,so we steered by "dead reckoning."Bige was feathering his paddle, Indianfashion without lifting it out of thewater, so we silently proceeded, makingno ripple on the surface and yet, atfirst, rather swiftly.A few minutes later, the bow of theboat struck some yielding obstacle.My first thought was that we had hita mossy, overhanging bank on the oppo-site shore of the pond. In times ofstress, thoughts follow each other inrapid succession. My second thoughtwas that the opposite shore was notmossy and overhanging, but rocky;third, that we had not been out longenough to get across; and fourth thatwe must have hit some animal who wasswimming. But things were happeningnow, more rapidly than thoughts, andvery much quicker than the time re-quired to tell about them ; and this latterthought was confirmed long before it wascompletely formulated.

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Instantly, after we struck, a violentcommotion occurred under the bow ofthe boat, water splashed in my face,there was the sound of scratching, gnaw-ing and splintering wood, then a pawappeared on the gunwale beside me, theboat rocked and I yelled to Bige, "Heis climbing aboard!!" while I lifted thecamera intending to brain this indis-tinct shape as soon as I could see itshead. This was immediately followedby the release of the weight on the sideof the boat, its rocking in the oppositedirection, a resounding slap on the waterwhich threw a shower of spray over myhead, in my eyes and ears. Then si-lence."Must have hit a muskrat," said

Bige."More like a collie dog or a youngbear," said I. "He surely would haveswamped the boat if you had not slappedthe water with the paddle, and I wouldhave smashed my camera over his head."

"I didn't slap anything with the pad-6


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die. I wouldn't spoil your fun thatway. Your friend in the water madeall the noise. Wonder what he was,"said Bige.

'Well, it was no measly muskrat,I'll stake my reputation and experienceon that," said I.There ended our photographing opera-tions for that occasion, since after such

a racket no deer could be expected toshow himself at the pond, so we turnedback to camp. On the way we discussedthe possible identity of the animal withwhom we had just been in collision,and who had upset our plans for theevening.Most wild animals swim; some forpleasure, others only when it cannot beavoided. In the darkness we failed toget a clear idea of the size or shape ofthis fellow, we could only judge by thejolt our boat got, and the commotion hemade in the water. We canvassed thepossibility of its being a coon, a fox, anotter, a porcupine, a marten, a lynx or

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a wolf; but there was something aboutthe habits of each that would not fit theincident and we went to bed with theproblem still unsolved.

After breakfast the following morn-ing, we went down to the shore andexamined our boat. The thin part ofthe prow above the water line had beenbitten through and a splinter a half-inch thick and eight inches long hadbeen torn out. The marks of very sharpclean cutting teeth plainly showed atthe upper end of the break. Shortbrown hairs were sticking to the roughedges of the bow, and on the keel for aspace of eighteen inches back of thebow.

"That fellow must have thought atree fell on him," said Bige. The boat,we found did not leak, so we went fish-ing. Passing a small island about a mileup the pond, we noticed a young greenpoplar tree had fallen into the water.There had been no wind storm formonths and we did not know of any

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other campers on the pond so we won-dered who could have cut down thatpoplar, and why? We went ashore toinvestigate. The tree we found wasabout four inches in diameter at the buttand it had not been chopped, but hadbeen gnawed off. The ground aboutthe stump was strewn with chips andone branch had been gnawed off andcarried away. The tooth marks on thestump were like those on the bow of ourboat, and looked as if made by a curvedchisel about a quarter inch wide. Thechips were from two to four inches longand were clean cut on each end and splitout as if they had come from a woodchopper's axe.

Bige said, "Gosh! that looks like thework of beaver, but there are no beaverin these woods, haven't been any herefor sixty years."A few minutes later we found thebranch which had been cut from thefallen poplar floating on the water nearshore opposite the island. The bark

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had been stripped from it down to thesmallest twig and it appeared white andconspicuous when seen from a distanceof fifty yards.

Proceeding on our way toward thefishing ground, we presently saw thehead of some animal above the surface.It was swimming toward us and waveswere spreading out fan wise in its wake,on the smooth surface of the pond.Instantly we became motionless andwatched its approach. When withinfifteen or twenty yards of our boat itstopped, eyeing us curiously, then swungto the right and again to the left, appar-ently for the purpose of viewing us fromdifferent angles. Its back appearingabove the surface was covered with areddish brown fur with long grey hairsshowing at intervals. There was a largewhite spot on the top of his head (thiswe later learned was not a character-istic marking, a white spot being quiteunusual on animals of this family, andit enabled us to recognize our first

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acquaintance from among the manymembers of his tribe whom we subse-quently met.) Two large, projectingand curving cutting teeth on the upperand two on the lower jaw appeared whenhe opened his mouth. There were alsoeight molars on each jaw. His eyeswere inconspicuous and his ears weresmall but he had a broad, flat tail,shaped somewhat like the blade of apaddle.Having, apparently, decided that itwould be unwise to cultivate a closeracquaintance with two men in a boat,our swimmer humped his back, liftedhigh his broad tail and with it struckthe water a powerful slap, the noise ofwhich reverberated from "Mud PondMountain to East Inlet Holler" and itthrew a shower of water and spray eightor ten feet into the air, looking like someof the war pictures of exploding mines.The animal disappeared under waterbut a long line of air bubbles coming tothe surface marked his progress under

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water. These we followed about twohundred yards to where they ended atthe opposite shore. A closer examina-tion disclosed the entrance, about twofeet under the surface, of a burrow whichseemed to rise under the high bank.

"Well," said Bige, "that's the fellowwho met up with our boat last night.He's a beaver all right, but where intunket did he come from?"The incidents here related occurred

while we were camping at Cherry Pond,seventeen years ago. We had learnedin many conversations with MitchellSabattis (an Indian who died at a veryadvanced age a few years ago, and whowas the oldest inhabitant of this region),about the Indians trapping beaver here,and how they sold hundreds of skins toJohn Jacob Astor, who became richdealing in furs which he purchasedthroughout the northern forests and inCanada.

Sabattis explained that it was thepractice of the Indians to take only

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a few animals from each colony, whenthey would move their traps to anotherdam. Thus there were always enoughbeaver left for breeding and they in-creased rapidly. But the white trappers,when they came, caught every beaverand took every skin, big and little, withthe result that in a few years' time,beaver had been exterminated from theAdirondack forests and none ever camein again.A few days after our encounter withthe animal as above related, we learned,while making inquiries, that during theprevious season the Conservation Com-mission of the State had "planted" afamily of six beavers on one of thestreams emptying into Raquette Lake,and we concluded that the individualwe met was an emigrant from thatcolony.Upon studying the government map,we figured that if he followed a chain of

lakes and ponds through the connectingstreams, he must have traveled thirty-

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five miles. If he had come over themountain and several foothills in astraight line, which seemed unlikely, hemight have shortened his trip to abouttwenty miles.We saw the white headed beaver manytimes during our visits to the pond thatsummer, sometimes on shore, or sittingon the trunk of a poplar or birch treewhich he had felled near the water. Hisbody was about thirty inches long, tailten inches long and six inches wide,hind feet webbed, like those of a goose,fore feet resembled the hands of a childbut with long, sharp toe nails. He mighthave weighed forty or fifty pounds. Hewas a slow and clumsy traveler on landbut a very efficient citizen in the water.He could dive and remain under waterfrom eight to ten minutes without ap-parent inconvenience. Swimming, hecould tow a log twice his own weight andagainst the current when necessary.

Early in September, his wife arrived.Whether the "old man" went after her,16


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whether he sent a wireless message ora telepathic command, or whether thedate of her coming had been arrangedbetween them before he left home, wenever knew. It seems quite probablethat she just naturally knew that it washigh time for her husband to stop ex-ploring and loafing and to get busybuilding a house and storing a supply offood for the winter, so she arrived.She would have no difficulty in fol-

lowing his trail, which after the habitof his kind, he doubtless marked at moreor less frequent intervals by scooping upfrom the bottom of the pond or streama double handful of soft mud, which hewould place on the shore, shape it upinto a nice round mudpie and depositin its center a few drops of "Castoreum."This material has a peculiar, pungentand individual odor easily recongizedby members of a beaver family. TheIndians also highly prized the castoreumof the beaver for its supposed medicinalproperties.

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Immediately on the arrival of thefemale beaver the two began workbuilding a house. This was placed ona point of land between the mouth ofthe river and a shallow bay or slough.The base of the house was about a footabove the normal level of the pond.Straight sticks and crooked branchestwo to four inches in diameter and aboutfive feet long were placed on the groundfor a foundation and were arranged ina circle like the spokes of a wheel. Onthese were piled other sticks, brush,stones, sod and mud, which latter wasused as cement or mortar to bind theother materials together. An openspace was left in the center, which grewsmaller in diameter as the walls werecarried up and was finally arched over.The house when finished was fourteenfeet in diameter at the base; it was coneshaped and six feet high. It had nodoor or entrance visible on the surface;but as the side walls were being carriedup one of the beavers dug a round hole

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twelve inches in diameter, straight downfrom the center of the house abouteighteen inches, when it was curvedtoward the river and opened out in thebottom. Then he dug a second entrance,close to the first one, but this curvedtoward the slough. The water therebeing shallow, a ditch or canal dug inthe bottom carried the outer end of theburrow down about three feet belowthe surface and a hundred feet or moreout to deep water. The mud procuredin digging the entrance and exit wasused in plastering the walls of the house.No mud was used on the ventilatingflue, which was a space about a foot indiameter in the center of the cone. Thiswas thoroughly protected from outsideenemies by two feet in thickness ofcriss-crossed sticks, but air could freelypass through the interstices.The house building proceeded rapidly,much of the work being done at night,

but we were able to inspect the buildingdaily, and several times we found the

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beavers working in the daytime. Alwaysthe white crowned beaver was the leaderand seemed to be directing the work ofthe other. When the structure wascompleted it proved to be an excellentexample of reinforced concrete work ofa most substantial character. Never-theless, six weeks later, just beforefreezing weather started, a final coatingof mud three inches thick was plasteredover the entire outside surface of thehouse. When frozen, this armor platewould furnish complete protection tothe furry inhabitants against their mostferocious enemies during the long andhungry months of winter.Some years later, a beaver house, theside of which had been cut away, af-forded an opportunity for us to learnhow our white-headed friend finishedthe inside of his castle. The rough pro-jecting inner ends of sticks, branchesand brush were gnawed off making aroomy, smooth-walled, dome ceilingedspace divided into two parts. The

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first, or ground floor, contained theopenings for entrance and exit. It alsowas used as a drying room; for no self-respecting beaver would ever permithimself, his family or guests to go tobed in wet clothes. Coming in fromswimming in the pond or river he mustsit in the vestibule until his wet fur isthoroughly dry before he climbs intothe bunk.The drying floor also serves the pur-

pose of a dining room in winter, whenthe pond is covered with ice, as willlater appear.The sleeping apartment had its floorabout six inches higher than the dryingfloor. The bed was made of thin shredsor splinters of dry poplar wood. Aquantity of this material had been splitout with an expenditure of much timeand patience. A mattress three inchesor more thick, made of this soft, elasticmaterial would make a far betterthan many campers can boast of.Mud for use in house building22


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procured, not only from the tunnel en-trances and from the canal, but excava-tions were made in the river bottomnear the house. A pocket was theredug out, about twenty feet in diameter,making the water six feet deep.

Into this hole the two beavers nowproceeded to store their food for thewinter. This consisted chiefly of thetrunks of poplar saplings, two to sixinches in diameter, cut into lengths offour to six feet, the sticks of larger dia-meter being the shorter. In the woodpile were also placed the branches of thesame trees. Mixed in with the poplarwere some alders and a few birch andsoft maple sticks. The birch and alderapparently were used to add spice andtang to the otherwise sameness of theirmore staple food.

In the edge of the forest next theslough a few years before, a fire (doubt-less started by some careless hunter),had burned over several acres, and thiswas now covered by a "second growth"

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of poplar. It was there that the beaverscut most of their lumber. The waterin the slough was shallow and filled withpond lillies, so a canal three feet wide,two feet deep and two hundred andtwenty feet long was dug across thismudhole. Through this canal the bea-vers floated their sticks and brush andplaced them on their storage pile underwater so that the bark, which they eat,might be kept soft and fresh for winteruse. Also, so that it might be reachedfrom their house under the ice, afterpond and river were frozen.Day after day Bige and I watched

the progress of this harvest. Saw thebeaver towing the floating logs throughthe canal into the pond and up theriver to the lumber pile where thebeaver would dive with his stick andpresently come to the surface again,leaving the stick under the water; andwe wondered how he did it. Also wediscussed possible ways of making afloating stick sink. From our boat we24


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could see the pile of wood below thesurface of the water and we could seeno stones on the pile.

Bige stoutly argued in support of thetheory that the beaver sucked the airout of the pores in the wood, that thewater fl6wed into the vacuum thus pro-duced, making the stick heavy enoughto sink. In order to demonstrate histheory, Bige took the axe from camp,cut a poplar sapling an inch and a halfin diameter and the usual beaver length,put one end in the water and sucked onthe other end of the stick. After re-peated trials and failures to make thestick do anything but float, Bige decidedthat his "sucker was not powerfulenough." The next day, looking downinto the water from our boat, we sawone end of the axe-cut stick in the woodpile with other sticks cut by beaverteeth.After my return to the city, Bigereported from time to time, makingvisits to the beaver house, seeing beaver

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Bige Testing the Powerof His Sucker


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swimming under the ice, carrying sticksfrom the wood pile into the tunnelleading to the house; also later, beaverbringing peeled sticks out of the houseand placing them in a very orderly man-ner on another pile. Reports alsoreached me of beaver under the icedigging pond lily roots and carryingthem into the house.

In the following April after the icein the pond had broken up, the beaverscame out of their winter home andbrought with them six young beaverpuppies. The father beaver with thewhite head now went away on his sum-mer exploration trip. We later learnedthat it was the habit of all male beaversto wander far from home during thesummer months. The mother remainedat the pond and took care of her sixyoung ones; but with them she movedinto the burrow in the bank where wehad first seen the old male beaver go tohide.Many times during the summer we

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saw the young beavers sunning them-selves on the bank or playing in thewater near the shore. The mother wasalways somewhere near, and invariablysounded a warning by pounding thewater with her broad tail, whereuponthe youngsters would scamper for coverand each would precede his dive byslapping the water with his little ladle-like tail, in feeble imitation of themother.One day in June a hawk swooped

down, grabbed one of the young bea-vers and carried him away. Later, apekan, sometimes called a fisher, killedanother one. Apparently the motherscared him off. We found the deadbaby beaver, and tracks in the mudgave us the name of his murderer.

Early in July of that summer, whileon a fishing trip to Wolf Pond, six milesto the east, Bige and I met our white-headed beaver friend. A slap on thewater and a shower of spray informedus that we were recognized. It also28


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spoiled our fishing for at least half anhour.Toward the end of the same month

we met him at the mouth of West BayBrook on Cedar Lake. This was ninemiles west of his home and fully fifteenmiles from Wolf Pond, where we lastsaw him.

In the third week in August we againsaw our beaver with a white cap. Thistime on Pine Brook where he was assist-ing two other beavers (possibly a bro-ther and sister of his,) in building adam across the brook. We were for-tunate in being able to conceal our-selves, and for a time watched opera-tions. Apparently, our friend was boss-ing the job and directing the operationsof the other two. It seemed that hisability as an engineer was recognizedin beaver world, and he therefore hadbeen called in to supervise a difficultundertaking. Thereafter we called himthe Chief Engineer, and he many timesproved his right to the title.30


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In September the Chief Engineerreturned to his home at Cherry Pond,and there followed a season of greatactivity among the beavers. Some oftheir work we were privileged to see inprogress, all of it we saw after comple-tion. The young beavers were nowabout one third the size of their parents,but they all worked.

First, the entire family visited theoutlet of the pond, where the Chiefdemonstrated to the others that withthe rocky stream bed and the accumu-lated drift-wood, a dam would be un-necessary to maintain water in the pondat its present level. Next the housemust be enlarged to make room for afamily of six instead of two, as in theprevious winter. When completed, thehouse was elliptical in shape, twenty-two feet across its base in the shortdiameter and thirty feet in its longerdimension. It was also increased inheight to eight feet. The peeled stickspiled up under the ice during the pre-

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vious winter were now utilized in mak-ing additions to the house with othersticks and brush brought from thewoods.The interior of the house was enlarged

to more than twice its former size bycutting away and dragging out throughthe tunnels, surplus materials. In doingthis, several pillars were left standingfor supports to the enlarged ceiling.Three additional tunnels were dug,

making five channels for entrance andexit. Those terminating in shallowwater were continued as ditches todeeper water.The storage warehouse also was madelarger and deeper, not only to providemortar for enlarging the building, butbecause more food must be stored forsix mouths than was required for two.A very high grade of what is called"instinct" in animals must be requiredto calculate and determine just howmuch food to store for a winter's supplyfor a family of a given size. It has been

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asserted by those who think they know,that in this matter a beaver never makesa mistake. That he also stores an extraamount of food for an unusually longand severe winter. So far as I haveobserved, they seem to come throughthe winter in good physical condition.A picture, which I have longed tosecure on a film, but which, so far, Ihave only been able to fix on the retinaof an eye, represents a young beaverabout the size of a kitten, not fullygrown, in an upright position, holdingin his two hands and against his breasta gob of mud, while he laboriously andclumsily struggles up the steep side ofhis house, on the roof of which he isabout to deposit his burden. In thewater, towing a young log or a bushybranch, he is much more at home andmore graceful in his movements.The following spring there came outof our beaver house, the Chief Engineer,

his wife, four yearlings and a newfamily of five babies. The "old man' 1

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now went off on his annual exploringtrip, but he took with him the fourolder children, while the mother and thebabies remained behind. As usual, thehouse was deserted during the summermonths. We now noted several bur-rows under the bank at widely separateplaces along shore. Sometimes thebeaver would be seen entering one ofthese holes and again another.

It is interesting and easy, to studythe habits of wild creatures, and to notehow uniform are their methods andpractices. It is not so easy to determinereasons for their peculiar way of doingthings. It is of course permissible tospeculate, but one might be expectedto furnish proof, when an assertion . ismade. For example, it has been statedby at least two writers, that beaverdesert their homes in summer so thatthe vermin which infest their huts maydie off from starvation during the ab-sence of their fur coated hosts.My own guess, if I were to hazard

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one, would be that since a beaver housemust generally be placed in an exposedposition, its owners find that with thesun beating down on its roof duringJune, July and August, the poorly ven-tilated interior becomes too hot forcomfort. On the other hand, I havenoted that the burrows in which theylive in summer, are usually found undersome overhanging tree, in a cool spotwhere the sun never penetrates.

During our wanderings through thewoods that summer, Bige and I cameupon a family of beavers at Mud Pond.These were doubtless also emigrantsfrom the original Raquette Lake colony.Great improvements were in progress.An abandoned and broken down lumberdam at the outlet, which had not beenused for lumber operations for manyyears, was being rebuilt by the beavers,and the Chief Engineer was on handassisting and directing operations.On a subsequent visit, we saw thecompleted dam which raised the waters36


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of the pond about three feet. An areamore than a mile long and a quartermile wide was now flooded. A swampat the upper end was entirely coveredand afforded water transportation froma large grove of poplar trees, whichwithout the dam could not have beenreached. Five years later, on the shoresof this pond, the beavers had completelycleared of trees more than ten acres ofground. At this time four beaver houseswere observed on the shore and onislands in Mud Pond.When three years old, the childrenof the Chief Engineer left the parentalhomestead, mated with relatives inother colonies and set up house buildingand house keeping on their own account.Some of them, doubtless, located manymiles away, others we know builtdams and houses on streams emptyinginto Cherry Pond.One summer Bige and I were troutfishing on West Bay Brook. We workedup stream about four miles from its38


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Beaver Posing


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mouth, and encountered seven beaverdams and as many houses. At one ofthese dams we found the white cappedChief working with some younger bea-vers. Our guess was, that some of thesewere his own offspring to whom he wasgiving instruction in engineering prac-tice.A year later, on Fishing Brook, twentymiles to the north-east, and fully fiftymiles from the original colony on theRaquette tributary, we found severalbeaver colonies. They also settled onMinnow Brook. On Salmon River,from its mouth to Salmon Pond (whichit drains), a distance of six miles, thereis now a beaver dam every half mile.At one of these dams, a few years ago,we found the Chief Engineer at work.The dam was placed where the currentwas swift, and a big rock in mid streamwas utilized as a pier, against which thetwo sections of the dam were braced.Such an adaptation of available meansto accomplish a difficult engineering40


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feat is surely something more thanmerely instinct.On an exploring trip over the foot

hills of Dunwood Mountain, Bige and Icame upon a very unusual beaver damon Little Bear Brook. The brook atthis point flowed through a deep ravine.The dam built across the valley mea-sured in length at its top two hundredand ten feet. It was fifteen feet fromthe bottom of brook to top of dam, andwe estimated the width at its base atforty feet. Water was flowing over aspillway three feet wide at one end ofthe dam. The upper and lower sidesof the dam sloped away steeply likethe roof of a house, and along the ridgewas a row of stones, each about thesize of a man's head. We walked acrossthe dam on these stones without wettingour feet, and we wondered how thebeavers got them into position. It didnot seem possible that such smallanimals could lift and carry these heavystones to where they were placed. It42


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was impossible for a human to rollthem up over the lower and outer faceof the dam, which was a network ofinterwoven and criss-crossed saplings,sticks and brush. The only othermethod which appeared to us possiblewas for the stones to be rolled or pushedup the upper and inner slope of the damunder water to the top. The inner faceof the dam was of course plastered overwith mud and was relatively smooth.We cooked our eggs, bacon and teaon the bank at one end of the dam.After we had eaten and drunken andwhile I was engaged in taking somephotographs, we were agreeably sur-prised to see our old friend, the baldheaded Chief Engineer, swimming downthe pond toward us. As a signal thatwe were recognized, he saluted by hump-ing his back, lifting his broad tail andstriking the water a resounding slap,thus throwing a fountain of spray highinto the air. His presence signified tous that this marvelous piece of engin-44


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eering was the product of his skill inplan and execution.We were able to go in a boat past thebeaver house on our pond, about amile up the river. At the head of navi-gation was a big flat rock, over whichthe water flowed, making a fall aboutone foot high, and above this fall wererapids. An old and much used trailstarted at this flat rock and led up theriver; a branch also took one to WolfPond and another branch led to Dun-wood Mountain. We often used thistrail, as also did other visitors at thepond. And doubtless, so did theIndians many years ago.A pair of young beavers, both of themprobably relatives of the Chief Engineer,

built a dam across the river on thisflat rock. The dam was about two feethigh, backing the water up the rapidsthirty yards and making a fall of waterover the dam three feet high. Abovethis dam the beavers started buildinga house, but before the house was com-

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pleted, high water following three daysof rain washed away the dam. Thebeavers at once rebuilt the dam in thesame spot, but within a month the damhad been the second time washed away.The high water of the following springcarried the dam, rebuilt in the fall, offof the flat rock for the third time.On the smooth flat surface of thisrock there was no suitable anchoragefor a darn, and the unusual pressure ofhigh and swift flowing water pushed itdown stream and scattered the materialsof which it was built.

It was a bad dam-site! and this isdoubtless what the Chief Engineer toldthe youngsters ; for it was at this periodthat the Chief took a hand in the game.The house that had been built abovethe flat rock was abandoned and wasnever again occupied.A pair of beavers which we believedto be the hard luck animals above men-tioned, we now found were beginningoperations on a new dam about a quar-46


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ter of a mile down the river, and theChief Engineer worked with them andseemed to be directing the job. Wewatched the progress of this enterprisefor many days and found it most inter-esting.At the spot selected, the river wasabout a hundred and twenty feet wide

arid five feet deep in the middle. Thecurrent was not very swift and a lotof mud had settled on the gravellybottom. Saplings and bushy alders,many of them fifteen to twenty feetlong, were used for a foundation. Theywere always placed with the butt endsup stream and stones on the bushy endsheld them firmly anchored on the bot-tom. All sorts of materials were workedinto this dam; much of it was carried,dragged or floated long distances. Thesticks and brush were interwoven in avery ingenious manner, the chinks werefilled with sod, stones and mud. Theentire structure was firmly braced byheavy sticks resting against the lower

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slope of the dam with one end of eachstick stuck in the ground at the bottomof the river.This dam at first was built up to

two feet above the normal level of theriver and water flowed over the top ofthe dam; but the river banks were lowat this place and water also flowed overthe banks on one side into a sloughand on the other side into a swamp.The second phase of this hydro-engineering feat was now begun. Itconsisted of wing dams two feet highon top of the river bank and parallel tothe stream. These were carried up onthe north side of the river a distance ofthree hundred and fifty feet and on thesouth side about two hundred feet. Thedam across the river was also made twofeet higher. The dam now, in themiddle of the river, was five feet highunder water and four feet above thesurface, making it nine feet in the high-est part and with the two wings, sixhundred and seventy feet long.48


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We had visited the scene of opera-tions at least twice every day duringthe building and had casually discussedthe probable difficulty in reaching theold trail up the river, but had not con-sidered the matter seriously. One dayBige and I dragged our boat up overthe dam and rowed up the river. Abovethe end of the wing dam the forest wasflooded five hundred or more feet oneach side of the river, and if we wishedto follow the old trail we should have towade through water at least as far asthat; for it was impossible to push theboat through the woods, between thetrees and bushes.

It was all very well and very inter-esting to watch the operations of thebeaver, but rfiis was carrying a joketoo far. The beavers were now inter-fering with our business. The beaversare, of course, protected by law, buthere were hundreds of fine spruce, hem-lock, pine and balsam trees beingdrowned in our presence. The trees

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would die; they were valuable; theybelonged to the State and we were bothof us tax-payers. This thing must bestopped at once.We rowed back to the dam and spentthree hours tearing a hole three feetwide through the middle of it. Wewatched the water run out through thebreak and then returned to camp.The next morning we found the damhad been repaired during the night andthe water was flowing over its top asusual. Two guests arrived at our campthat morning. They were interested inthe 'story of the dam and spent all ofthe afternoon in making another open-ing to let the water out; but again thebeavers had the dam repaired beforethe following morning. The Doctor hadby now settled in his camp at the westernend of the pond. He came across withhis two husky boys and they broke ahole through the dam for the third time ;and the third time the beavers repairedthe breach during the night.50


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Bige's fighting blood was now thor-oughly "het up" and he said 'Til fixthem pesky beavers." A lot of menwere at work building a "tote road"for a lumber camp over the other sideof the mountain about three miles fromour camp. Bige went over to call onthem, and he came back with four sticksof dynamite and some fuse. These weconnected and placed on top of the dam.We covered the dynamite with mud,lighted the fuse, jumped into our boatand rowed as fast as possible downtoward the pond. When a hundredyards away, the explosion occured. Witha terrific roar that beaver dam was shottoward the sky and toward every pointof the compass, and the water abovethe dam came rushing through a gaptwenty feet wide. A later examinationproved, that the dam had been torn outclear to the bottom of the river. Ourhand-made breaks had extended onlyto the surface of the water below thedam.52


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That night a hurry up wireless callwent out, and before morning twenty-three beavers were at work rebuildingthe dam, with the Chief Engineer incommand. We figured that delegationsmust have come from a colony two milesup the river, probably some from MudPond, others from Pine Brook and Ra-quette River. Certainly, there were not,living on our pond, as many beavers aswe saw at work that night. By thenext morning the dam had been rebuiltto the water level, and the second morn-ing it was completely restored withwater flowing over the top. A curiousfact we noted, was, that while bothbanks of the river were strewn withfragments of the old dam, not a singlepiece of this tainted and dangerousmaterial was used. New trees andbushes were cut and carried greaterdistances for the rebuilding.At this stage of the war, Bige and Isurrendered. We were hopelessly out-numbered and outclassed by the beavers.

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They worked while we were asleep. Wenow got busy and cut out a new trailaround the swamp and the flooded areato connect with the old trail. Thismakes the walk fully a half mile longerthan before the dam was built.The Chief Engineer had lived at

Cherry Pond ten years. He had broughtout a new family of from four to sevenindividuals every spring. All of thesehad been housed and fed for two or threeyears, when they were old enough toemigrate and set up in business ancthousekeeping on their own. Duringthese ten years a large quantity of barkhad been consumed and poplar, thefavorite food of beaver, had practicallyall been cut ofl. Along the shores andon the islands no more was to be found.It v/as, therefore, necessary to seek newsources of food supply.Beyond the swamp, to the northeastof the river mouth, there was a grove of

poplar trees, covering several acres. Itwas nearly a half mile to this grove, but54


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not too far for the courage of our Chief,who now set his gang of youngsters atwork digging a canal. This canal hadan average width of three feet and it wastwo and a half feet deep. It was madequite crooked through the swamp, wind-ing around and between clumps ofalders and larger trees. Smaller treeswere dug up and roots which crossed thepath of the canal were cut off as cleanas if chopped with an axe.Water in the canal through the swampmaintained practically the level of the

pond. There was a gradual rise ofground beyond the swamp and here aseries of dams or locks were built. Eachdam raised the level of water from twoto three feet. There were thirteen ofthese levels varying in length from fifty,to two hundred and fifty feet. Waterfrom a spring brook was diverted intothe canal and flowed over each dam.The beavers towed their lumber throughthis canal and dragged it over theseveral dams, each of which seemed to

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2H

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n?


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be especially constructed to facilitatethis operation. The length of this canalwe estimated to be twenty-five hundredfeet.

Beavers appear to prefer the bark ofsmaller trees, but they do not hesitate tocut down a large one when necessary.In such case they carry away thebranches only. A poplar tree eighteeninches in diameter was cut on the shoreof our pond and felled into the water.The branches that .remained above thesurface were cut off and carried to thestorage pile. Those that were underwater were left and were cut off underthe ice during the following winter.

Beavers are generally peaceable. Theyhave many admirable traits. Individ-uals of one colony will assist those ofanother in strenuous operations muchas pioneer humans helped each other inbuilding log cabins, in barn raisings,etc. Many tales are told. One, of afamily whose house had been destroyed,being taken into another's house and

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Tree 18 Inches in DiameterPartly Cut by Beaver


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the two families living together all win-ter. Another story relates how a motherbeaver was killed, when another immed-iately adopted the five orphans andbrought them up with her own children.We have recorded above, instanceswhere the Chief Engineer was contri-buting his remarkable skill and exper-ience toward solving the problems ofhis friends in widely separated parts ofthe forest. And we believe he did notinsist upon union rules in regard towage, hours of labor, or minimum out-put.Our observations justify the beliefthat at least some beavers have a senseof humor. We mention two incidentsin support of the theory. One day onthe big lake, near the hotel, I saw twogirls about twelve years of age, in acanoe. These girls were chasing abeaver. The beaver was swimming onthe surface and he was more than halfa mile from his house. He could easilyhave outdistanced the canoe and got

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away from it, but he chose to swimslowly and allow the canoe to approachuntil the girls might have touched himwith a paddle, when he would humphimself, slap the water with his tail,*thus throwing showers of spray overthe girls, while he dived under the canoeand presently came to the surface insome new and unexpected position. Thegirls, of course, with screams and excitedshouts frantically swung the canoe intoposition and started the chase overagain; while the beaver loafed alonguntil they caught up. This game of tag,played by the girls and the beaver Iwatched for twenty minutes or moreand each time the girls came near enoughto the animal he managed to throwwater on them. I feel certain that heenjoyed the game quite as much as thetwo girls, and while I did not hear thebeaver laugh, I thought I saw a grinon his face.The cottage where our family live

during the summer, stands on a bank60


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about thirty feet above the water andfifty feet from the shore of the lake.A number of shade trees have beenplanted on the grounds about the house.Among these were two poplar treeswhich we had carefully nursed for fiveyears, and they were growing fine. Oneof them was directly in front of the cot-tage and twenty feet from the steps.It was six inches in diameter. Theother tree was four inches in diameterand about thirty feet from one side ofthe house.A mile up the lake was a large beaverhouse. The shores near this house onboth sides of the lake, were lined withpoplar trees and an island near by wascovered with them. One night a beaverfrom this colony came down the lakeand cut down the poplar tree in frontof our door, cut it into suitable lengthsand towed it back up the lake to hishouse. In the morning all that wasleft where my tree stood, was a stumpand some chips. The following night

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he came again and cut the other tree.He must have made several trips to towback to his storage pile the lumber hecut at my front door.

I have devoted some time to specu-lating as to the motive that might con-ceivably actuate a perfectly sane andintelligent beaver to haul his lumbermore than a mile, when in doing so hewould have to pass by hundreds of otherequally good trees, many of them withina few rods of his house. The only rea-sonable answer I have been able tosecure to this conundrum is that thebeaver probably thought it would bea good joke on me; and I have a mentalpicture of him laughing in his sleeve ashe dragged the logs down the bank infront of my door while I slept.

Early in October, a few years ago,Bige and I were entertaining three guestsat our Cherry Pond camp. For twodays we had been hunting with indif-ferent success. Awakening quite earlyone morning, I took my rifle and leav-

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ing the other members of the partyaudibly sleeping on the balsam, tiptoedout of camp and down the trail. Alog-road paralleled the shore of thepond and I wandered down this road,hoping to get an early morning shot ata deer. It was still quite dark and Ifound that the sights on my gun werestill invisible in the dim light, so I saton a log and waited for the first yellowlight to appear over East Inlet Moun-tain. Then, continuing my silent, stalk-ing way, when opposite the mouth ofthe river, I heard curious and unusualsounds. Peering through the bushesacross the slough I saw a black bear.He was on top of the beaver house andwith his claws was tearing out sticks,brush and sod and throwing them inevery direction. The bear was verybusy and with great energy and deter-mination he was proceeding to dig outthe Chief Engineer. Of course I knewthat the Chief was in no personal danger,as he had a perfectly safe way of retreat

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Bear Wrecking Beaver House


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open, under water. But I could notstand idly by and see his roof torn off:so I took careful aim and fired. Thebear tumbled down the steep slope ofthe beaver house and I had visions ofbear steak, etc., etc. But he immed-iately got on his feet and wallowedthrough the slough to the shore. Ashe crossed the log-road headed towardthe woods I fired again and the secondtime the bear fell. It did not take himlong to recover his balance and startat high speed up the steep hillside.About ten rods from where I stood, thebear came into an opening in the busheswhich had once been a skid-way forlogs; here he stopped, put his fore pawsup 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 thirdshot cut a bunch of hair off of his shoul-der and he resumed his journey up themountain and I went back to camp.The racket made by three shots in66


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the early morning had suddenly inter-rupted the camp chorus, and I wasgreeted with the inquiry, "Where's thedeer?""That deer/' said I, "is a bear, and

he's big as a horse. I left him up in thewoods. We'll go and get him afterbreakfast."

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

After breakfast, we all started out onthe trail of the bear. We found bloodspots in the log-road. We also meas-ured a foot print in a soft place in thepath. It was twelve inches in diameter.Broken bushes, blood spots on fallen

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trees and on leaves marked his route upthe steep slope. Half way up the moun-tain on a big ledge of rocks, coveredwith moss, the bear had been lying down.A pool of blood marked the spot. Also,numerous tufts of moss torn from therock and saturated with blood werescattered about. Apparently the bearhad pulled up handfuls of the soft mossand used it in the same manner that asurgeon uses lint.

Bige suggested, 'This is a first aidstation for bears; but if you should tellanyone what you have seen here, youwill be put in the class of Nature Fakirs. "We followed the bear's trail from themossy rock up to the top of the moun-tain and had started down the otherside when it began to rain. In a fewminutes the rain had washed away thered stains and we lost the trail andreturned to camp. But that bear isgoing yet. Also, he is carrying with himthree bullets that belong to me. Someday, somewhere in the woods, I expect

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to meet him again, when I shall takethose bullets away from him.

It is now seventeen years since wefirst met the Chief Engineer. He stillretains the monopoly of his trade mark.Within our knowledge, no other beaverhas appeared with a white spot on hishead. But the Chief shows his age.His brown coat of fur looks faded andgrey, and the white spot is less conspic-uous. The Chief was a member of thefirst colony installed for the purposeof restocking the northern forests; andhe has contributed his share, both toincreasing the inhabitants and to re-building beaver industries. Every sea-son a new family of four to seven bea-vers have been sent out from his hometo start other families, and so they havemultiplied in a sort of geometrical pro-gression until now they cover manyhundreds of square miles of forest landand water. Early in 1920 the Conser-vation Commissioner of the State ofNew York estimated that there were

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more than twenty thousand beavers inthe Adirondack region. My guess isthat this estimate is much too low.One day last summer, Bige and I sawthe Chief Engineer dive and enter atunnel leading to his house. We silentlypaddled up close to the house and lis-tened. Presently we heard a murmur ofbeaver conversation inside. "Gosh!"said Bige, "the old Chief is giving in-structions to the kid beavers. He'stelling 'em how to handle the job theyhave to do tonight."

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14 DAY USERETURN DWEDThis book is due on the last date stamped below, oron the date to which renewed.Renewed books are subject to immediate recall.DEC


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(1920) the chief engineer

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