Monday morning it was splendid walking on the crust; they made a long day’s march, travelling till dark. Making a fire at the root of a tree, they flung some brush on the snow, and laid down in their blankets in the open air to sleep. Continuing to follow the bank of the little stream, they started some moose about ten o’clock in the day; the crust would bear them, but not the moose, who broke through at every step, staining the snow with their blood. In those days moose were more abundant in Maine than any other part of New England. Pursuing them till sundown, they succeeded in capturing one, and camped on the trail. In the morning, resuming the pursuit, they soon came in sight of the herd, but such is the power of this animal, that, notwithstanding the advantage which snow-shoes gave the men, it was the middle of the afternoon before they came up with them, and succeeded in killing four more. Relinquishing the pursuit, which now promised to lead them in a different direction from that in which they wished to go, they dressed the moose, hung him on the trees out of the reach of wolves, and wrapping themselves in the skins, laid down on the snow to sleep.

“Joe,” said Uncle Isaac, “how far do you judge we are from the spot the young man told you of?”

“I reckon about a mile.”

“Well, I hunted over some of this ground twenty years ago, with the Indians, off to the east’rd, and then again to the north’rd of us, where there are many ponds, some of them having outlets one into the other. Suppose, while we are cooking some breakfast, you put on your snow-shoes and take a look, and, if you think best, we’ll make a permanent camp somewhere hereabouts; and as we’ve got to live in it a good while, we’ll make it well.”

In a short time Joe returned, saying, “I found the place, and there are beavers enough.”

They immediately set about building their camp, and determined to make it as home-like and comfortable as possible. It was made of logs, from which all the knots and bunches were trimmed, and the crevices between them stuffed with moss from the trees.

Since they had come on the snow with sledges, they were enabled to bring a great deal more weight than if they had set out before the snow came, as, in addition to the sledges, they also carried light packs, and moreover intended to build canoes, and return in the spring by the river.

Uncle Isaac, thoroughly versed in wood-craft, and always thoughtful, had brought an auger, draw-shave, and a small saw on his sledge.

They split out cedar shingles, with the frow, four feet long, fastening them to the rafters and purlins, with poles held down with wooden pins and withes. Upon these they put brush to break the dash of the rain, and prevent the rain and snow from being driven by force of the wind under the shingles, as they intended it for a permanent camp, in which to leave furs and provisions during their absence on trapping and hunting excursions. They made a solid door of cedar plank, hung on wooden hinges, a deacon’s seat, and a rack around the sides, covered with hemlock and cedar brush, for bedsteads.

“We ought to have a stool or two,” said Uncle Isaac; “we want something we can move round; we can’t move the deacon’s seat, and we can’t move the fire.”

He cut down a spruce that had long straight limbs and cut some chunks from the top three feet long, leaving a sufficient number of limbs on each side for legs; he split the pieces in halves, and smoothed the split side with a draw-shave.

“There,” said he, setting it up before the wondering boys, “there’s a backwoodsman’s stool: them are legs won’t want any gluing, and if anybody wants a cushion, they can put some moss on it.”

While Uncle Isaac was at work on the stools, Charlie, Joe, and John were splitting out boards to make a table.

“The first stormy day that comes,” said Uncle Isaac, “I’ll make some bark dishes, and the rest of you can make some spoons, and we’ll have some shelves; it’s just as well to be comfortable. There’s just one thing we do want desperately; that is, a fireplace, to keep the fire from spreading all over the camp, taking up so much room, and also a chimney, instead of a hole in the roof.”

“We can build a fireplace of green logs,” said Joe.

“Yes, but it will burn out in a short time.”

“I wonder if we couldn’t find some rocks or clay somewhere; or is everything froze fast?”

“I don’t believe but by cutting a little ice, we could find stones, and clay too, in the river. It don’t freeze hard here in the woods, as it does out in the clear.”

The snow had come that year before the ground froze, and under the bank of the stream they found clay and flat stones, of which they built a fireplace, and the chimney of sticks of wood and clay.

“There’s no end to wants,” said Uncle Isaac; “now I want some birch-bark dishes.”

“You’ll have to give that up,” said John, “for the bark won’t run.”

“Won’t it? I’ll make it run.”

He warmed a birch tree with hot water, and made the bark run as well as in the spring.

“Now get me some spruce roots, Charlie, and in evenings and rainy days we’ll make the dishes.”

As they expected to hunt and trap over a large extent of ground, they travelled about ten miles farther on, and built a rough shanty in among several ponds and small streams, where they expected to find beavers, and placed in it some provisions; then they took the back track, seven or eight miles from the permanent camp, and built another on the bank of the river, where they expected to find otter and mink. They dignified the middle one with the name of the home camp; that among the lakes they called the shanty, and the other the river camp.

“We ought to have come up and done all this before snow came,” said Uncle Isaac; “but now we must do the best we can; perhaps we shall blunder into good luck; people do sometimes. There would have been a hundred beavers where there is one, if it had not been for the French and English.”

“Why so?” asked Joe.

“Because, when the French held Canada, they put the Indians up to breaking the dams and destroying the beaver, to spite the English; and now the English have got Canada, they do the same, to spite us. An Indian, of his own accord, won’t destroy game, any more than a farmer would destroy his seed-corn: when they break into a beaver house, they always throw back the young ones, and part of the old, to breed; but a white man takes the whole, because he’s afraid, if he don’t, the next white trapper will.”

Beavers are industrious and provident, not, like other animals that live by the chase and the slaughter of other creatures, subject to a lack of food; they are protected in their houses from violence, and are so prolific, that, notwithstanding the merciless warfare waged upon them, by which they had been driven from the sea-coasts even at that early day, they were still abundant in those wilds whither our adventurers had followed them. The beaver is about three feet in length, averaging in weight sixty pounds; its tail is a foot in length, flat, and covered with scales; the feet and legs flat and short, with a membrane between the toes; it has very strong and large cutting teeth, the upper ones two and a half inches long, and the lower ones three inches: with these teeth they will cut down a tree eight inches through; and if a tree stands in just the right place, and they want it very much, they won’t hesitate to cut it if it is a foot through. When the beavers are two years old, they build houses, and set up for themselves, as they don’t like to live on their parents. They breathe air, and therefore cannot live a long time under water; neither can they live without having constant access to the water; they are, therefore, compelled to build in water so deep that it will not freeze at the bottom; the entrance is under water: by diving beneath the ice, they can get at the lily-roots on the bottom of the pond, and also obtain access to holes in the bank, which they provide for retreat in the event of being disturbed in their houses. They feed on the wood and bark of trees, which they cut down and sink in front of their houses, in order to obtain it in the winter.

Their houses are built of branches of trees, mud, and stones, from two to six or eight feet in thickness, and, when frozen hard, bid defiance to all attacks, save those of man. They have an elevated platform in them, above the surface of the water, on which they sleep. They break the ice every night, opposite their holes in the bank, for a breathing-hole, thus keeping it open, that in pleasant days they may go into the woods. They often build in a pond, but generally prefer to dam a brook, and make their own pond; then, when they want wood to repair their houses or dams, or for provision in winter, they can make a raft up stream and, getting on to it, float down with the stream, steering with their paws.

After completing their camp, and making all their arrangements, they approached the spot, and perceived that the animals had dammed a large brook. In the midst of the pond thus formed, surrounded by snow and ice, which covered them nearly to their tops, were twelve large beaver houses. All was still as death: the sun shone clear on the snow-covered houses, beneath which, in a half-torpid state, the beavers were reposing, most effectually sheltered from the cold and from beasts of prey. Safe beneath the ice was their winter supply of food: all they had to do when hungry was to go a few feet, and obtain it.

The party walked carefully over the ice, and Uncle Isaac pointed out to the boys the breathing-holes in it.

“Well,” he said, by way of summing up, “I reckon there are not less than a hundred beavers under this snow and ice, and likely to be more than less.”

“A hundred beavers!” cried John, in amazement.

“Yes; there’s ten in a house, old and young, I’ll warrant—not less than ten: I’ve seen twenty-five taken out of one house. They’re not ours yet, my boy!” slapping John on the shoulder.

“Be they good to eat?” asked Charlie.

“Nothing better, especially the tails. I call a singed beaver a dish to set before a king.”

“Why do they singe them?”

“You see, a beaver in the winter is as fat as a hog, and the fat lies on the outside; you want the skin, just as you do the rind of pork; so, if you can afford to singe the fur all off, and lose that, he will be just like a scalded hog. I’m in hopes we shall get enough to be able to singe at least one.”

In the course of the day they discovered three other beaver settlements, two of them in ponds made by damming up a brook, and the other in a large natural pond. They also discovered otter-slides and fishing-holes, where the otters fished a great quantity of muskrat, dens and tracks of minks along the river banks and brooks.

“Now,” said Uncle Isaac, “let us look for bears. I’ve seen signs, more or less, for the last two or three miles.”

“What are the signs, Uncle Isaac?” asked Charlie. “I don’t see any.”

Uncle Isaac smiled, and pointed to a clump of oaks and beeches on the side of the brook, the top limbs of which were all bent in, and many of them broken off.

“What do you suppose bent and broke all these limbs?”

“Why, the wind, or the snow, I suppose.”

“But neither the wind or the snow would bend them in; it would bend them down; but these are turned up, and bent in.”

“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Charlie. “What did?”

“Why, the bears.”

“The bears! What for?”

“Why, the bears live on acorns and beech-nuts; they go a-nutting, as well as boys, climb up into the top of a tree, just like a cat, and, when they’ve got as high as the limbs will bear, they sit down in the crotch of a large limb, reach out their paws, and pull the smaller limbs in, and eat off the beech-nuts and acorns; they will pull in and break off a limb as big as my arm. There have been plenty of bears round here late this fall. There are lots of them asleep under these old windfalls, and in hollow trees, and we must find them, and mark the trees; then we can get them when we like.”

They had not proceeded far in their search when Joe exclaimed, “I’ve found one!”

He was standing at the foot of an enormous elm, which, being hollow, had broken off about twenty feet from the ground.

“How do you know there is a bear there?” asked Charlie. “I don’t see any.”

At this all laughed, when Uncle Isaac pointed out to Charlie a regular line of grooves and scratches, extending from the bottom to the top of the tree, left by the bear’s claws, where it had gone up and down; he also told him that the bear went into his den in November, and remained asleep, without eating or coming out, till spring, and that it was a she bear, because they always lived by themselves, and in trees, if hollow, or windfalls, if they could find them, to keep their young from the wolves and the males; that if there was a bear there, she probably had cubs, perhaps four, but at least two; perhaps eight, for if she had two litters in one year, she would make a den close by for the first cubs; both litters follow her the next summer, and the next winter all live together. They generally weigh from three to four hundred.

They found many more dens under windfalls, and the roots of trees, and sides of rocks, for the bear is so well protected by his thick coat as to be nearly insensible to cold, and will content himself very well, with a little brush for a bed, under the side of a root that has been turned up, or a rock, though the female will seek out a hollow tree. They discovered the dens either by scratches on the stubs, or by noticing where the breath of the bear had stained and melted the snow.

Having marked all the places, in order to find them again, they returned to the home camp.