So the long days go by in a kind of careless summer
excursion; and when one sometimes finds their camping ground in his
own summer roving through the wilderness, he looks upon it with
curious sympathy. Fellow campers are they, pitching their tents by
sunny lakes and alder-fringed, trout-haunted brooks, always close to
Nature's heart, and loving the wild, free life much as he does
himself.
But when the days grow short and chill, and the twitter of warblers
gives place to the _honk_ of passing geese, and wild ducks gather in
the lakes, then the heart of the beaver goes back to his home; and
presently he follows his heart. September finds them gathered about
the old dam again, the older heads filled with plans of repair and new
houses and winter food and many other things. The grown-up males have
brought their mates back to the old home; the females have found their
places in other family groups. It is then that the beaver begins to be
busy.
His first concern is for a stout dam across the stream that will give
him a good-sized pond and plenty of deep water. To understand this,
one must remember that the beaver intends to shut himself in a kind of
prison all winter. He knows well that he is not safe on land a moment
after the snow falls; that some prowling lucivee or wolverine would
find his tracks and follow him, and that his escape to water would be
cut off by thick ice.
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