Shaggycoat: The Biography of a Beaver

Dedicated to my Little Brother, the Venetian, who, living in a house that his hands have made, surrounded by a moat of his own device, the head of a large family and a citizen in a goodly community, is more like man in his mode of life, than any other of God's creatures.

Reached down and gripped his brother

KING OF ALL THE BEAVERS

Till he came unto a streamlet
In the middle of the forest,
To a streamlet still and tranquil,
That had overflowed its margin,
To a dam made by the beavers,
To a pond of quiet water,
Where knee-deep the trees were standing,
Where the water-lilies floated,
Where the rushes waved and whispered.
On the dam stood Pau-Puk-Keewis,
On the dam of trunks and branches,
Through whose chinks the water spouted,
O'er whose summit flowed the streamlet.
From the bottom rose the beaver,
Looked with two great eyes of wonder,
Eyes that seemed to ask a question,
At the stranger Pau-Puk-Keewis.

—Longfellow.

	Introduction	11
I.	The Fugitives	23
II.	Alone in the World	39
III.	The Courtship of Shaggycoat	53
IV.	How the Great Dam was Built	67
V.	A Beaver Lodge	81
VI.	How the Winter Went	97
VII.	Life in the Water World	111
VIII.	A Bit of Tragedy	125
IX.	Strangers at the Lake	141
X.	A Troublesome Fellow	163
XI.	A Bank Beaver	181
XII.	The Builders	195
XIII.	Beaver Joe	211
XIV.	Running-Water	225
XV.	King of Beavers	243
XVI.	Old Shag	261

Reached down and gripped his brother	Frontispiece
The final touches were put upon this curious dome-shaped house	Facing page 86
Tearing at their house and filling the night with awful sounds	96
The buck gave a mighty leap and fell midway in the stream	122
There is where the hunter and hunted met	193

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