Life — August 4, 1904 — page 12: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“LIFE Ni datnes Montgomery agg THE BEAVER. S I was lounging on my cabin sofa, lazily wondering whether my Indian cook would give me broiled venison or woodchuck pie for dinner, the ’phone rang. It was from the office. They wanted an article on the beaver. I said to myself in a dazed sort of way, ‘ Beaver, beaver! To be sure — the funny little thing that builds dams and has a tail that looks as if it were done up in a chignon.” I put on my Indian duds and started out. A bright little boy of one of my neighbors kindly told me where I could see some beavers. d him several questions which he answered intelli- Ile smiled in a peculiar way when I was talking to him. I could not quite make out what amused him, At any ute, I'm not sorry I talked with him. I wanted to be sure that I would know the beaver when I came up to them, Another result of my conversation was my returning to the cabin for an instant and replacing my revolver on the rack, The beaver is not a ferocious beast when unmolested, and I had the most lofty and humane intentions toward him, I found the trail— it was more than a mere trail, in fact, it was a wagon road— and proceeded. Catching a glimpse of some animals through the trees, I at once recognized them as beavers. The training that my vocation gives quickens the perceptions to a marvelous degree. I could call eleven different animals by name I won't say that all the names would be I'm a bit stronger on the domestic animal Natural History begins now. right. than the imported kind. at home, I contend, I fixed myself comfortably in atree and watched the beavers. There were only three of the little chaps at work, ‘They were building a dam. They are quite limited in their imagination. I believe they never build anything but dams, I should think they would get tired of generation after generation building the same old thing in the same old way. If a beaver could only get out and advertise himself, in the way I know how so well, for instance, he wouldn't have to build an ordinary mud dam. He could live in a brown- stone one. There will be great glory in store for the beaver who breaks away from the old narrow ruts and builds an opera house, or a bank, or a speedway. Of course this is nonsense, but you know what I mean. A fourth beaver, a slick-looking chap, bossed the gang. He was the foreman, I judged. From the opposite bank, as I watched, came two new beavers, who walked out onto the dam and started to work mixing mud. The foreman looked at them, then walked out to the gang and seemed tobe attracting their attention to the new- comers. Tnen the trouble started. The three original beavers dropped their sticks and flew at the new arrivals, slapped them head over heels with their muddy tails, and forced them off the dam onto the shore. I used my usual deductive method—the discomfited Bossed the gang. comicbooks.com