Page:Hugh Pendexter--The young timber-cruisers.djvu/126

 “But why does he do it?” queried Stanley, studying the little piles almost incredulously.

“He lumbers because he’s a fisherman. He builds this dam to hold back the fish. I take off my hat to the beaver,” declared Bub.

“I supposed all the beaver were killed off,” said Stanley.

“Hardly; it was for trapping them that Big Nick lost his license. Besides beaver, we could catch otter, sable, mink, ermine—which is really a small weasel—and the fisher.”

Stanley drank this in with avidity and begged his companion to wait a while on the bank and see if some of the little loggers wouldn’t put in an appearance.

Bub smiled. “We’ll see no beaver, but no reason why we shouldn’t loaf a bit. Almost sure to be something coming here. Only, you must keep quiet and motionless.”

An hour’s silence, however, revealed no new secret of the wood, except as a loon tried for a trout and failed and laughed hideously at the youths when they jeered him.

On the rest of the journey, taken leisurely, Bub pointed out a kingbird successfully attacking a hawk and several woodpeckers telegraphing to their mates on the surface of dead trees.