CHAPTER III
THE COURTSHIP OF SHAGGYCOAT
My young readers may wonder why I have called the beaver, whose fortuneswe are following, Shaggycoat, so I will tell them.
The fur of the beaver and the otter is very thick and soft, but, in itsnatural state, it is quite different from what it is when worn by womenin cloaks and coats, for the fine short fur is sprinkled with long hairsthat give the coat a shaggy, uneven appearance. In the case of our ownbeaver, Shaggycoat, these long hairs were very pronounced, so you seethe name fitted him nicely.
When the fur of any of these little animals is prepared for market, thelong hairs are all pulled out with a small pair of tweezers. This iscalled plucking the skin.
As the summer days went by and August ripened into September, theloneliness that had oppressed Shaggycoat during the summer grew tenfoldand he became more restless than ever. There seemed to be something forwhich he was looking and longing. It was not right that he should wanderup and down lakes and streams and have no living creatures to stop tospeak with him. His world was too large; the lakes and streams were tooendless. He wanted to share them with somebody or something. He hadfound many a wondrous water nook, which he would like to show some one;but still up and down he wandered, and no one did he find to share hisgreat world. Yet it seemed sometimes as though he had come near tosomebody or something, for which he was looking, but it always vanishedat the next turn of the stream or at the waterfall.
Thus in this endless searching that came to naught, like searching forthe pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, the autumn days passed.
The maples and the oaks shook out their crimson and golden streamers,and a touch of surpassing glory was on all the world. Sometimes themerry wind would shower down maple leaves until the edge of the streamwas as bright as the boughs above.
It seemed that their fire touched Shaggycoat as he swam among them,making him burn and glow like the autumn forest.
Then a new plan came into his wise head. If what he was looking forcould not be found by searching, perhaps it might be coaxed to come tohim. He would try and see. So he gathered some grass and mud and made avery queer patty, which looked much like a child's mud pie. This hesmoothed off with as much care as a baker would a cream cake.
This patty had been made by a beaver. He was sure that whoever found itwould know that, for it had a strong musky smell, so he left hislove-letter under a bush near a watercourse, and went away to waitdevelopments.
A day he waited, but his letter remained unopened, and, of course,unread. Two days, and no better result, but the third day he found tohis great joy that the letter had been opened. There was an unmistakablebeaver musk about it, and new paw and nose prints upon it.
This was his answer. It said as plainly as words could have said, "Ihave read your letter and know what it means. I am waiting in some pool,or under a shelving bank near-by. Come."
Then Shaggycoat raced up and down the stream churning the water like atug boat, until he found fresh beaver tracks in the mud. These hefollowed rapidly along the bank until he came to where it overhung thewater and there he found his mate waiting for him with glad eyes.
Shaggycoat went up to her and rubbed his nose against hers. It was notlike his grandfather's nose, cold and repellent, but warm and caressing.He backed away a pace or two to look at her and there was new joy in hisheart.
She was not quite as large as he, and her coat was just a shade lighterdrab, but she was very sleek and Shaggycoat was well satisfied.
I know not what they said there under the shelving bank, during theirfirst tryst, but I do not agree with those niggardly naturalists whowould strip the brute kingdom of feeling and intelligence and the powerto express joy and pain, and appropriate all these feelings tothemselves.
It may be that Shaggycoat told his newly found mate how bright her eyeswere and how long he had searched for her or perhaps she confessed thatshe had seen him many times just around the bend in the stream, but hadnot thought that he was looking for her. We are none of us certain ofany of these things, but we are sure of one thing. It was a very happymeeting.
Then Shaggycoat led the way through lake and river to many wonderfulwater grottoes; to deep pools where the bottom of the lake was as darkand forbidding as midnight, or to shallows, where the bottom of thestream was gay with bright pebbles, and where the sunlight danced uponthe uneven water until it made a wondrous many colored mirror.
He showed her his waterfall, and a part of a small dam that he hadconstructed just for fun across a little brook. The waterfall was notreally his any more than it was any one else's, but he called it his.
These and many other water wonders he showed his young mate, and hereyes grew brighter as the wonders of their world grew. She wondered howhe had traveled so far, and seen so many things. But all the timeShaggycoat was leading the way toward a dear little brook that he knewof away back in the wilderness, in one of the fastnesses of nature. Hehad a definite plan in his head concerning this stream. He had made itweeks before and arranged many of its details. But one day as theyjourneyed, a sad accident befell Brighteyes, and for a time it bade fairto end all their hopes.
They were swimming leisurely up stream and had stopped at the mouth of alittle rill where the water was very fresh, when Brighteyes discovered astick of sweet smelling birch hanging just above the water's edge. Itfairly made her mouth water.
But Shaggycoat was suspicious. He had seen wood fixed like this before.He had tasted it and something had caught him by the paw, and only afterseveral hours of wrenching had he been able to free himself. Even thenhe had left one claw and a part of the toe in the trap.
So he pushed Brighteyes from the trap and tried to hurry away with her.But, with true feminine wilfulness and curiosity, she persisted, and amoment later the trap was sprung and she was held fast by the toes ofone of her forefeet.
She tugged and twisted, pulled and turned in every direction, but itwould not let go. Then Shaggycoat got hold of the chain with his teethand pulled too, but with no better success.
Brighteyes struggled until her paw was nearly wrenched from theshoulder, but the persistent thing that held her by three toes stillclung like a vise.
At last when both beavers were filled with despair, and a wild terror ofbeing held so firmly had seized them, a bright idea came to Shaggycoat.He gnawed off the stake that held the chain upon the trap and his matewas free to go, with the trap still clinging to her paw, and the chainrattling along upon the stones. Then they tried all sorts of experimentsto get the trap off, the two most ingenious ways being drowning it, andburying it in the mud, and then seeking to steal away quietly withoutdisturbing it. But the trap was not to be taken unawares in this way,and always followed. Finally it caught between two stones where thebrook was shallow, and came off itself. You may imagine they were gladto see the last of it, and Brighteyes never forgot the lesson.
It was several days before her shoulder got fairly over the wrenching,but it may have saved her glossy coat in after years.
Finally, after traveling leisurely for about a week, they came to themountain stream that Shaggycoat had in mind. It wound through a broadalder covered meadow, with steep foothills a mile or so back on eitherside. The meadow was about two miles long and at the lower end, wherethe stream ran into a narrow valley, there were two large pines, one oneither bank.
Up in the foothills were innumerable birch and maple saplings and hereand there in the meadow were knolls of higher land, covered with smallpines and spruces.
Perhaps Shaggycoat had seen this wild meadow covered with water in thespring during a freshet, or maybe he had only imagined it, but there wasa picture in his active mind of a strong beaver dam at the foot of thenarrows and a broad lake that should be enclosed by the foothills; uponthe islands were to be many beaver lodges, the first of which should beoccupied by Brighteyes and himself.