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Updated: May 8, 2025
His glossy brown skin was gashed and streaming with blood, but the Boy gathered that his wounds were not mortal. He turned, stared fixedly at the beaver-house for several seconds as if unwilling to give in, then stole off through the trees to seek some more hospitable water.
Beyond, there was only another open stretch, to be crossed, and a high mountain to be climbed. He did not know exactly what to do, as he crashed through the willows bordering the little river. Then he saw a very large beaver-house, like a small haystack rising ten feet above the water, in a dammed pond. He plunged for it, and commenced to swim.
Wandering down from northwestward, under the impulse of one of those migratory whims which sometimes give the lie to statistics and tradition, came a sinister, dark, slow-moving beast whose savage and crafty eyes took on a sudden flame when they detected the white mound which hid the shore beaver-house.
Nothing unusual appearing, he dived cleanly into the pond, about the point where, as the Boy guessed, there would be the greatest depth of water against the dam. He was apparently heading straight up for the inlet of the pond, on a path which would take him within about twenty-five or thirty yards of the main beaver-house on the island.
In a moment or so they were upon the beaver-house itself. Their moccasins crunched the brittle sticks and mud; they thrust with their spears, and seemed uncertain what to do, themselves. Another fear thrilled him. Supposing they guessed that he was under them, and set the house on fire! It would burn; the fire would eat down, and he would be roasted or smothered.
I have seen a large beaver-house built in a small island that had near a dozen apartments under one roof; and, two or three of these only excepted, none of them had any communication with each other but by water.
She then lays a fresh tier of eggs, covering these also with mud, and so on until she has laid her whole hatching, which often amounts to nearly two hundred eggs, of a dirty greenish-white colour. In the end she covers all up with mud, plastering it with her tail until it assumes the appearance of a mud oven or beaver-house.
If he might manage to get into that beaver-house before he was sighted ! He had quick wit, did John Colter. The water was some ten feet deep, at the house. He held his breath and took a deep, deep dive. Luck was with him, to reward him. He groped, near the bottom, and struck the entrance; got his head through, and his body, and wriggled on perhaps to stick fast inside and drown! No!
Then, just opposite the main beaver-house, there was a commotion in the water, the surface curled and eddied, and the otter appeared in great excitement. He dived again immediately; and just as he did so the head of a huge beaver poked up and snatched a breath.
Well, he crossed the same mountain, into the valley, and was in camp, at night, in the Three Forks country not far from where he had run his race yes, was not far from the very beaver-house in which he had hidden, when while cooking his supper of buffalo-meat he heard the cracking of brush behind him. He pricked up his ears, and did not stir.
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