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VOLUME 88. NO. 30.
PUBLISHED EVERY THURSDAY IN THE YEAR
AT I TN AU NN A RN AN SN RN TN G Y T U S A SOV (Y TN TSN Y SN S S
RSk A S LN N
T T B+ I S L M B AV B 4 A M S s B
E took the spring and the fall
W terms at the academy, six
miles away, where Mr. Ken-
nard taught; but as we had a very
good winter school in the old squire’s
district, we attended that during cold
weather.
On Saturday evenings we attended
a singing school at the district school-
house, kept by a local musical celeb-
rity—an illiterate, eccentric man with
a fine deep bass voice. Ile was nick-
named ‘*Bear-tone,”” from the ws
which he pronounced the word *bari-
tone.””
On the way home from singing
school late one evening in January,
Theodora dropped a letter from Lucia
Scribner ; she probably pulled it out of
her pocket by accident with her hand-
kerchief. The mnext morning she
missed it, and went back along the
snowy road to the schoolhouse in
the hope of finding it; but she failed
to do so, for the very good reason that
a young neighbor of ours, named
Alfred Batchelder, had already picked
it up. Alfred was a tricky, unprin-
cipled boy. Although the letter was
plainly addressed to Theodora, and
although Alfred had to pass our house
on his way home, he kept the letter
and read it.
In it Lucia had mentioned the beav-
ers. ““Ilow do you suppose ‘Cudjo,”
‘Pretty-Nose,” ‘Ajax,” ‘Little Boob,’
and all the rest of them are getting
along up there on the boundary ?”’ she
wrote. ‘‘Oh, I do so hope nothing
will happen to them, and that we shall
find them there next summer; for I
think that plan of Mr. Kennard’s is
one of the finest I ever heard of. I
mean to do my best to make it sue-
ceed.”
When he read that, Alfred un-
doubtedly pricked up his ears, ** ‘Up
there on the boundary,’ ** he probably
said to himself. ‘“That must be up
at their school camp. * Cudjo ?*
‘Pretty-Nose?’ Must be pets they’ve
got up there.””
The situation of our summer camp
at the head of the hay meadows was
well known. Alfred and a friend of
his, William Metzar, went to the camp
‘about two weeks later, broke into the
camp house, and lived th in great comfort
for a week. They appropriated the food sup-
plies that had been left over from summer.
Another uninvited guest had been there before
them—a wolverene; and Alfred and his crony
started out on his track with the intention of o
killing him. N
The trail led them up over the craggy,
wooded ridges to the northeast, and then down ‘ and Bill hunted for
through the tangled evergreen thickets to the | several days for any
secluded little pond where our beaver colony | creatures that might
lived. | have escaped to holes
Then Alfred and his friend shouted for joy. | or burrows round the
‘‘Iere’sa find !’ they cried. **Three houses, | pond. They brought an
SNSRRERNR A
DRAWINGS 8Y W. F. STECHER
THEODORA AND
7 -
A
/THE\
OMPANI
Copyright, 1914, by Perry Mason Company, Boston, Mass.
AR A ANSANSANR S
ELLEN SAW THEM HANGING IN A GREAT BUNCH
BEHIND THE COUNTER.
BOUNDARY SECRET
> Zy C.AStephens ~ K
K S Th ree Chapters.Chapter Two
T
¢
beavers had kept open
in going and coming
to feed during the
night. Even that small
hole was closing up in
the sharp cold of the
full of beavers! ITere’s Pretty-Nose! Ilere’s axe from our camp, and cutting a gap in the | winter morning. The two boys, approaching
Cudjo! We will get every pelt. It’s 8200 for |
us.”’
now hard-frozen dam, succeeded in lowering
" COMPANION
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NV VN N Y Y A A SN ANNY AN SN SN Y AN SN AN S SN
SN WY RNSAN AN SRS
JULY 23, 1914
IN FICTION FACT AND COMMENT
TWO DOLLARS AYEAR - FIVE CENTS A COPY
A
to get our mail, saw them hanging in
a great bunch behind the counter, and
heard who had brought them. They
hurried home to tell Addison and
me.
From the first we had suspected
that Alfred had picked up Theodora’s
letter, for Ellen had seen him pass
early that morning. We now guessed
instantly what had happened. Addi-
son went straight to Alfred’s house.
‘“Alfred,”” he said to him, *‘did
you get those beavers up at Boundary
Camp?””
““What will you give me to tell
you?”’ asked Alfred.
Addison saw there was nothing to
be got out of him, and came away.
No law protected beavers in Maine
or Canada at that time; there was
nothing we could do except to pros-
ecute the boys for trespassing, and
that was hardly worth while.
Willis went up to the camp and the
pond the next day; he found only
the shattered houses, broken dam,
and twenty or more flayed bodies of
beavers lying in the trampled snow, °
already half devoured by lynxes. On
his return he told us that apparently
the colony had been slaughtered to the
last beaver. ~
When we went up to Boundary
Camp again the next July, neither
Theodora nor Lucia could be per-
suaded to visit the beaver pond. We
boys made a visit to the place. Round
the pond, which was now much lower,
Jay the whitening bones of its former
happy inhabitants. There, too, were
the shattered houses, where now only
a few frogs peeped.
After that visit, neither Bronson,
nor Hiram, nor others of our guests
cared to return to the place: but
Willis, who liked to explore the woods
alone, went back several times. Ile
had seen something that interested
him, but he kept quiet about it. Ie
would not have told Addison or me,
I think, if we, too, had not made a
discovery.
One afternoon in August we went
up to the pond, and found that the
gap in the dam had been stopped with
fresh brush and mud. We could see
no signs of new work at any of the
houses ; but far up one of the canals we saw a
swamp maple that had been gnawed recently.
We mentioned it to Willis, and asked him
whether he thought that a beaver might have
escaped the general slaughter.
“‘Maybe,”” said Willis.
“Don’t you want to go up there with us
and see?’’ Addison asked.
““Oh, I’ve been up,’” Willis replied. **Yes,””
he added, rather reluctantly, ‘‘there are four
beavers left there—but do, for pity’s sake,
keep still about it! They live in a hole under
the bank. They don’t go to the houses. I
suppose they don’t dare to. I watched a long
time before I caught sight of them. One has
| quietly, surprised and killed a mother beaver | lost his right forefoot, but he can swim and
lthe water and ice two or three feet. Then | and four half-grown kittens out on the snow, | gnaw all right.
They set to work the next day. Bronson had | they were able to search the burrows and | at the brush pile.
left a flask of powder at the camp. They also | drive out the beavers that were lying there in
There were still a few beavers left, the boys
Two of the others are patsies;
| and there is one last year’s kitten. They lie
up close, most of the time, they are so scared,
found an iron rod there, and with that and a | fear and trembling. They shot and captured | thought, and they watched the pond for two |and they take to the water at the least little
maul, they drove holes through the frozen mud | five more in that way.
roofs of the houses. Down the holes they | Late in the preceding fall the beavers had
pushed charges of powder, wrapped in paper, | drawn a great rick of bireh, poplar and swamp
and set them off by means of ‘‘fuses’ that they | maple down their canals into the pond for
made from hollow stalks of elder or sumac.
The first blast—so Alfred afterward boasted | near the houses, and had weighted it with
—not only tore the house open, but stunned | stones and mud. When Alfred and Bill stole
and disabled four of the beavers that were down to the pond one day, they saw that the
crowded together in the closed chamber below. | top twigs of this great brush heap were in
The beavers that had escaped the blast swam | fitful motion, as if some animals were nibbling
off beneath the ice to the other two houses, or | at the rick from below.
to other retreats. Many of the older animals| ‘‘They’re eating!”” exclaimed Bill, *‘There’s
took refuge in holes and burrows under tree | more of *em down there!””
roots along the shores of the pond. Most of
the kittens crowded into the largest house. | were unable to get a shot, for the beavers
The attack was so unexpected, and the explo-
sion and powder smoke so new and strange
to them, that the startled animals did not know
what to do or which way to turn.
When Alfred and Bill blew up the largest | outside. The next morning they left camp at
house, three old beavers and seven of the kit- | daybreak, and hastened
tens were either killed or blinded. One of | to the pond in the hope
the old ones was very large, and weighed fifty | of getting a shot.
pounds. ITe was probably our **Nestor| The night had been so
Castor.”” cold that the open water
The last and smallest of the three houses|at the place where the
the two boys demolished in the same way. | hunters had pulled out
There, however, they got only two beaver | the wood had frozen over
They now had sixteen beavers on the bloody | again®-all except one
snow. Not content with this slaughter, Alfred | small hole that the
and Bill broke up the ice round the food heap,
Although they approached cautiously, they |
winter food, had stored it on the bottom |
or three days more, then set four traps that
they had brought from home about piles of
green brush on the snow of the pond. Near
each of these they cut holes in the ice, for they
knew that the beaver in their coverts below
would be famished, and would be likely to
venture forth to the green stuff during the
night.
By that trick they got two more, one a
kitten, the other nearly full-grown. A third
larger and older beaver was caught, and es-
caped, although it left one forefoot in the trap.
We had reason afterward to think that the
fortunate one was Ajax.
Then the hunters returned home with their
quickly swam away under the ice. So Alfred | trophies.
““Got twenty -eight of ’em,”” Bill said.
and dragged it all out upon the snow, so that | **Good haul—and won’t those camp chaps be
the beavers would have to steal forth to feed | mad !’
The fist we learned about the fate of our
colony was the news
that Alfred and Bill had
sold a handsome pack
of beaver skins at the
country store and post
office. ~ Beavers were
then so rare that many
people went to see the
skins. Theodora and
Ellen, who had called
| sound, and keep out of sight for hours after-
‘ ward. Now don’t tell a soul about them.’”
And we did not for nearly a month; then
one day, when the girls were speaking sadly
| of the lost colony, as they often did, and of
Mr. Kennard’s plan for ing the beaver,
I said to Theodora and Lucia that perhaps all
| hope for carrying out his scheme was not gone
| yet. I thought it was too bad that they should
| not know of our discovery, since they were so
| greatly interested.
‘ That hint filled . them with curiosity, and
| they questioned me. T pledged them to secrecy,
and told them that we thought there were four
beavers hiding at the pond.
The girls at once became eager to find out
which of their old pets had escaped Alfred
and Bill. Without our knowledge, they began
making trips to watch for the beavers. It was
along time before they saw the creatures, but
| they finally succeeded in catching a glimpse of
Ithe one that had lost its foot, and declared
that it was Ajax. Perhaps it was; the girls
‘h:\vl sharp eyes; yet Frances and Dronson
believed it to be Cudjo. Later, they caught
| sight of the others, and were confident that
| one of them was Pretty-Nose. A dark-colored
| young beaver they named Nuba Castor; and
the Jast year’s kitten they called *‘Little Bub.””
Lucia could not refrain from whispering the
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