"Joe," said Wahawa to the trapper one evening, as they sat by the fire, munching corn bread and bacon, "I believe you have caught the sacred beaver of my people, the good Puigagis, King of all the Beavers."

Joe laughed. "Py gar, what foolishness you tink in your hade now. You is one foolish leetle gal, he your sacred beaver, you say?"

But Wahawa did not laugh. She looked very serious as she replied, "It is nothing to laugh at, Joe. If this is really the sacred beaver, no good will come of it. Did you notice he had lost one forepaw? My people always let a maimed beaver go when they trap him because of something that happened many moons ago. Listen, Joe, and I will tell."

The man of many traps looked interested for he, too, was touched with superstition, and fearful of anything that might affect his good luck as a trapper.

"As many moons ago as the old pine back of the shack has needles on its boughs," began Wahawa, "the Great Spirit became angry with my people. The squaws said it was because the warriors went on the war-path instead of killing and preparing meat for the winter months, and the braves said it was because the squaws were lazy and did not raise corn. But for one reason or another the Manito was angry so he covered the face of the sun with his right hand, and it was like a sick man's smile, and he covered the moon and the stars by night with his blanket and they were no longer bright, but like a camp-fire that has gone out.

"The corn did not grow in the summer-time, and the snow and the wind were furious in the winter.

"Such cold as this was never known in the land before and never since. The ice froze so deeply on lake and river that it could not be broken and no fish could be taken. The deer all yarded in the deep forest and did not stir abroad so the hunters could not find them, and many perished before spring. Still deeper and deeper fell the snow and colder and colder grew the breath of the wind, and the kiss of the frost was like death.

"The warm skins of bear and beaver were no longer warm and the camp-fire had lost its heat.

"Finally, the warriors were obliged to kill their ponies, and the wolves, running in great packs, came down to help with the feast. At night they would stand about the camp, just on the border of the firelight, watching and waiting. They seemed to know that powder and ball were low in the pouch of the warrior, and that he no longer had strength to draw the bow. They knew that the camp-fires would soon go out, and the warriors and the squaws fall asleep at their post. So the great gray wolfs watched and waited for they knew that the hour of feasting was near at hand.

"Then my grandmother, who was the daughter of the chief, and whose withered lips told me the story, had a dream.

"She dreamed that Puigagis, the King of the Beavers, came into her lodge and spoke to her in the tongue of her people.

"'O Singing Bird, daughter of the great chief,' he said, and his voice was sweet to hear. 'The great spirit was angry because his warriors did not hunt, and the women were lazy, but he has seen the suffering of thy people, and the great wolf, Famine, looking in at your lodges. This melted his anger and he has sent me to save your people. Tell your father, the chief, to send his warriors in the morning to a valley, one day's march to the northward, and they shall find a colony of beavers as large as an Indian village. Many lodges they shall see, and all will contain beaver meat, and warm furs to protect them and their women against the wind and frost. I, Puigagis, the King of all the Beavers, will go before them to show the way. My own life and all the lives of my kind I will give to save the lives of the redmen and their daughters.'

"Then the wind lifted Puigagis, King of the Beavers, in its strong arms and bore him away over the tree-tops.

"The daughter of the chief awoke and saw that the camp-fire was very low, and that the wind was shaking the tepee as though to tear it down. When she put new faggots on the fire and it blazed up, she saw there were beaver tracks on the snow and her dream had been true. She awoke her father, the chief, who called his warriors and they examined the tracks in the snow and saw that they were the tracks of a beaver; a beaver of great size, who had lost one forepaw in a trap.

"The chief then bade his warriors make ready for in the morning they would go to the lake of which the King of the Beavers had spoken.

"In the morning the sun was brighter than it had been for weeks, and they started out with more hope than they had felt for many moons. They went due north as Puigagis, the King of the Beavers, had directed, and, whenever they were uncertain of the way, they would examine the snow and always at just the right moment would find the tracks of the three-footed beaver.

"Although he went on the wings of the wind, he touched the snow every mile or two that they might not go astray and miss the Beaver Lake.

"Late in the afternoon, when they were weary and very cold with the long march, they came to a beautiful valley, and there before them, covered with snow, stretched the broad bosom of the lake.

"Here and there showing their domes above the ice were beaver lodges, many more than the oldest hunters had ever seen. On the top of the largest lodge of all sat Puigagis, King of all the Beavers, and the warriors saw that his right forepaw had been taken off by a trap. A moment he sat there as though in welcome, then disappeared as if the lodge had opened and swallowed him.

"Then the warriors built great fires upon the ice, made a hole in the beaver dam with their hatchets and strong stakes which they cut in the woods, and destroyed the entire colony, with the exception of the great lodge of Puigagis, King of all the Beavers. This they would not touch, lest evil befall them; nor will they take the skin of a maimed beaver to this day.

"They loaded their packs with meat and skins until they bent beneath them. The wind and weather befriended them on their homeward journey. The beaver meat and the new skins kept life in the Indian village until the great Spirit lifted his hand from the face of the sun, till flowers and birds returned and the children of the woods were again glad.

"But the three-footed beaver they will not trap or harm to this day and it is an ill omen to hold one captive."

"Dat ees vun fine story," commented Joe, as the narrator finished. "Maybe he true, maybe he not. I do not know me. But he ver good," and Joe blew rings of blue smoke and watched them meditatively.

"Did you ever hear how the beaver got his flat tail?" asked Wahawa.

"By gar, no, I tink he always have he. Tell one more pretty story, leetle gal."

"Well, this was the way," replied the Indian girl.

"Many, many moons ago, so long ago that it is only known by pictures that my people cut in stone, there was a King Beaver, wiser and larger than all his fellows. In those days, the beaver had a round bushy tail like the raccoon, but he saw one day when he was building a house that it would be very handy to have a flat tail. He pondered long on how to get it. Finally a plan came to him and he called the four strongest beavers in the land and told them to bring a large flat stone.

"When they had brought the stone, the King Beaver placed his tail upon another flat stone and made the four strong beavers drop the stone they had brought upon his tail. It hurt him very much but he shut his teeth tight and thought how nice it would be to have a flat tail. When they lifted the stone off his tail, it was not as flat as he wished, so they tried again, but still it did not suit him, but he thought they had flattened it enough for that day.

"Every day for a week he had the four strong beavers drop the stone on his tail until at last it was flat enough. After that he used it so much in handling mud that the hair soon wore off, and it looked just as the beaver tail does now. The descendants of this beaver all had flat tails, and they were so much stronger and better workmen that they survived all the other kinds and the round-tailed beavers soon became extinct.

"There is another Indian legend about how the beaver learned to build houses. Once an Indian caught a beaver in a pitfall and took him home to his wigwam where he kept him all winter. The beaver saw how warm and nice the Indian house was and the following fall when he escaped he built himself a mud house as near like the Indian's as he could, and he was the first beaver to live in a lodge."

"Ver good stories," commented Joe. "Ver good. Maybe they true, maybe they not, but I tink He make um beaver tail flat, because He know the beaver want a flat tail. And for He," Joe pointed with his thumb to the roof of the shack, "He give de eagle hees strong wing because he live in the cloud, an' de fish fins, because he want to swim. He made de deer with springs in his laigs because he got no teeth to bite his enemy, nor claws. He made de fox cunning becase he not strong, so he run mighty fast like de wind. De wildcat an' de bar, He also give claws an' strong arms, so they all lib an' not starb.

"De flower it smile, an' de tree talk an' de wind an' de water they better company than much folks. Dar no lie in de woods. Dar all tings good. He make all tings ver good, by gar. Me like um wind an' water. They all make me glad."

One day when Shaggycoat had been in captivity about a week, Wahawa came down to his burrow and coaxed and dragged him out. He was not so much afraid of her as he had been and he loved the sound of her voice, for it was like the water slipping between stones. But when she had brought him forth, Wahawa did something that both astonished and frightened the beaver, for, quick as a flash, she threw a camp blanket over his head, and before he had time to bite, she had gathered up the four corners and Shaggycoat was a prisoner in an improvised bag.

Although he bit and clawed at the blanket, it was so soft and yielding that he could make no impression on it, so he finally lay still and let the Indian girl do with him what she would. She talked to him all the time in that low rippling voice which somewhat allayed his fear.

She slowly ascended the ladder leading to the room above with the heavy load upon her back and then rested him for a moment on the floor.

What new peril awaited him, Shaggycoat did not know. Maybe his coat was to be taken off now, and he would be just like the poor beaver he had seen the first night of his captivity. But Wahawa soon lifted him to her strong back again and bore him away, he knew not where. When she had carried him about a quarter of a mile over rough country, she laid down her burden, and, to the great astonishment of the beaver, dropped the four corners of the blanket and the beautiful world that Shaggycoat had known before his captivity, the world with a sky and fresh green trees and bushes with grass and sweet smelling air, was before him. But better than all that a swift stream was flowing almost at his very feet. The music of its rippling made him wild with joy.

Here was freedom almost within reach. But his captor was standing by and the buckskin collar was still about his neck and he imagined it held him in some mysterious manner. He looked up at the Indian girl with large pleading eyes, and she understood his misgivings, so she drew the hunting knife from her belt and severed the buckskin collar. It had cut into his neck for so long that the beaver did not realize it was gone until he saw it lying on the ground, then his heart gave a great bound. Was freedom to be his after all? His nostrils dilated as he looked furtively about. There was his captive standing by him and her eyes were full of kindness. There was the water calling to him, calling as it had never called before, but he did not quite know what it all meant. Then the Indian girl spoke and he understood.

"Go, Puigagis, King of the Beavers," she said. "Go and be happy after thy kind. We have held thee captive too long. Go at once, lest evil befall us."

With a sudden jump, a scramble and a great splash, Shaggycoat clove the water of the deep pool at their feet. The ripples widened and widened and a few bubbles rose to the surface as the dark form sank from sight and Puigagis disappeared as suddenly from the life of the Indian girl as though the earth had opened and swallowed him.

Once she thought she saw a dark form gliding stealthily along under the shadow of the further bank, but was not sure. Although she watched and listened for a long time, she saw or heard nothing of him. Puigagis, King of the Beavers, had gone to his kind. The lakes and the streams had reclaimed their wilderness child, and the Indian girl was glad.