just as in the life of every man there is one big, controlling influence, either for good or bad, so in the life of baree the beaver-pond was largely an arbiter of destiny. where he might have gone if he had not discovered it, and what might have happened to him, are matters of conjecture. but it held him. it began to take the place of the old windfall, and in the beavers themselves he found a companionship which made up, in a way, for his loss of the protection and friendship of kazan and gray wolf.
this companionship, if it could be called that, went just so far and no farther. with each day that passed the older beavers became more accustomed to seeing baree. at the end of two weeks, if baree had gone away, they would have missed him—but not in the same way that baree would have missed the beavers. it was a matter of good-natured toleration on their part. with baree it was different. he was still uskahis, as nepeese would have said; he still wanted mothering; he was still moved by the puppyish yearnings which he had not yet had the time to outgrow; and when night came—to speak that yearning quite plainly—he had the desire to go into the big beaver house with umisk and his chums and sleep.
during this fortnight that followed beaver-tooth’s exploit on the dam baree ate his meals a mile up the creek, where there were plenty of crawfish. but the pond was home. night always found him there, and a large part of his day. he slept at the end of the dam, or on top of it on particularly clear nights, and the beavers accepted him as a permanent guest. they worked in his presence as if he did not exist.
baree was fascinated by this work, and he never grew tired of watching it. it puzzled and bewildered him. day after day he saw them float timber and brush through the water for the new dam. he saw this dam growing steadily under their efforts. one day he lay within a dozen feet of an old beaver who was cutting down a tree six inches through. when the tree fell, and the old beaver scurried away, baree scurried, too. then he came back and smelled of the cutting, wondering what it was all about, and why umisk’s uncle or grandfather or aunt had gone to all that trouble.
he still could not induce umisk and the other young beavers to join him in play, and after the first week or so he gave up his efforts. in fact, their play puzzled him almost as much as the dam-building operations of the older beavers. umisk, for instance, was fond of playing in the mud at the edge of the pond. he was like a very small boy. where his elders floated timbers from three inches to a foot in diameter to the big dam, umisk brought small sticks and twigs no larger around than a lead-pencil to his playground, and built a make-believe dam of his own.
umisk would work an hour at a time on this play-dam as industriously as his father and mother were working on the big dam, and baree would lie flat on his belly a few feet away, watching him and wondering mightily. and through this half-dry mud umisk would also dig his miniature canals, just as a small boy might have dug his mississippi river and pirate-infested oceans in the outflow of some back-lot spring. with his sharp little teeth he cut down his big timber—willow-sprouts never more than an inch in diameter; and when one of these four or five-foot sprouts toppled down, he undoubtedly felt as great a satisfaction as beaver-tooth felt when he sent a seventy-foot birch crashing into the edge of the pond. baree could not understand the fun of all this. he could see some reason for nibbling at sticks—he liked to sharpen his teeth on sticks himself; but it puzzled him to explain why umisk so painstakingly stripped the bark from the sticks and swallowed it.
another method of play still further discouraged baree’s advances. a short distance from the spot where he had first seen umisk there was a shelving bank that rose ten or twelve feet from the water, and this bank was used by the young beavers as a slide. it was worn smooth and hard. umisk would climb up the bank at a point where it was not so steep. at the top of the slide he would put his tail out flat behind him and give himself a shove, shooting down the toboggan and landing in the water with a big splash. at times there were from six to ten young beavers engaged in this sport, and now and then one of the older beavers would waddle to the top of the slide and take a turn with the youngsters.
one afternoon, when the toboggan was particularly wet and slippery from recent use, baree went up the beaver-path to the top of the bank, and began investigating. nowhere had he found the beaver-smell so strong as on the slide. he began sniffing and incautiously went too far. in an instant his feet shot out from under him, and with a single wild yelp he went shooting down the toboggan. for the second time in his life he found himself struggling under water, and when a minute or two later he dragged himself up through the soft mud to the firmer footing of the shore, he had at last a very well-defined opinion of beaver play.
it may be that umisk saw him. it may be that very soon the story of his adventure was known by all the inhabitants of beaver town. for when baree came upon umisk eating his supper of alder-bark that evening, umisk stood his ground to the last inch, and for the first time they smelled noses. at least baree sniffed audibly, and plucky little umisk sat like a rolled-up sphinx. that was the final cementing of their friendship—on baree’s part. he capered about extravagantly for a few moments, telling umisk how much he liked him, and that they’d be great chums. umisk didn’t talk. he didn’t make a move until he resumed his supper. but he was a companionable looking little fellow, for all that, and baree was happier than he had been since the day he left the old windfall.
this friendship, even though it outwardly appeared to be quite one-sided, was decidedly fortunate for umisk. when baree was at the pond, he always kept as near to umisk as possible, when he could find him. one day he was lying in a patch of grass, half asleep, while umisk busied himself in a clump of alder-shoots a few yards away. it was the warning crack of a beaver tail that fully roused baree; and then another and another, like pistol-shots. he jumped up. everywhere beavers were scurrying for the pond.
just then umisk came out of the alders and hurried as fast as his short, fat legs would carry him toward the water. he had almost reached the mud when a lightning flash of red passed before baree’s eyes in the afternoon sun, and in another instant napakasew—the he-fox—had fastened his sharp fangs in umisk’s throat. baree heard his little friend’s agonized cry; he heard the frenzied flap-flap-flap of many tails—and his blood pounded suddenly with the thrill of excitement and rage.
as swiftly as the red fox himself, baree darted to the rescue. he was as big and as heavy as the fox, and when he struck napakasew, it was with a ferocious snarl that pierrot might have heard on the farther side of the pond, and his teeth sank like knives into the shoulder of umisk’s assailant. the fox was of a breed of forest highwaymen which kills from behind. he was not a fighter when it came fang-to-fang, unless cornered—and so fierce and sudden was baree’s assault that napakasew took to flight almost as quickly as he had begun his attack on umisk.
baree did not follow him, but went to umisk, who lay half in the mud, whimpering and snuffling in a curious sort of way. gently baree nosed him, and after a moment or two umisk got up on his webbed feet, while fully twenty or thirty beavers were making a tremendous fuss in the water near the shore.
after this the beaver-pond seemed more than ever like home to baree.
