Shaggycoat much good advice, and among other things told him to always keep close to the water where he was comparatively safe, while upon land, he was the easy prey of all his natural enemies. The peculiar angle of his hind legs made it impossible for him, or any other beaver, to travel much on shore, but, while in the water they were his safeguard.

These were delightful days for the two-year-old. The water was getting warm and the mere act of swimming filled him with delight. Besides, it seemed like a very wonderful world in which he lived. He had come so far and seen so many strange things. He wondered if there were other rivers and if they were all as long as this one.

One spring morning when the air was warm and balmy and birds had begun to sing in the tree-tops along the bank, Shaggycoat went for a swim in a deep pool. It was not his custom to be abroad in the daylight, for beavers as a rule love the dark and do most of their work in inky darkness, but the two-year-old felt restless. He must be stirring. His grandfather was too old and stupid for him, so he went.

He had a delightful play and a good breakfast upon some alders that grew in a little cove. He stayed much longer than usual, so that when he returned the sun was low in the west.

He found his grandfather stretched out much as he had left him, but there was something peculiar about him. He was so still. He was not sleeping, for there was no motion of the chest and no steam from the nostrils. Shaggycoat went up to him and put his nose to his, but it was quite cold. Then he poked him gently with his paw, but he did not stir. Then he nipped his ear as the older beaver had so frequently done to him, but there was no response.

He would wait; perhaps this was a new kind of sleep. He would probably wake in the morning, but a strange uneasiness filled Shaggycoat. He was almost afraid of his grandfather, for he was so quiet and his nose was so cold.

He waited an hour or two and then tried to waken him again, but with no better success. This time to touch the icy nose of the old beaver sent a chill through Shaggycoat's every nerve, and a sudden terror of the lifeless silent thing before him seized him.

Then a sense of loss, coupled with a great fear, came over him and he fled from the burrow like a hunted creature. He must put as many miles as possible between himself and that sleep from which there was no waking.

The river had never seemed so dark and uninviting before, nor held so many terrors. His grandfather had always led the way and he had merely to follow. Now he was to lead. But where? He did not know the way, but that silence and the terror of that stiff form with the cold nose haunted him and he fled on.

Morning found him many miles from the shelving bank, where the old beaver had been left behind.

Shaggycoat feared the river and all it contained. The world too was strange to him, but most of all he feared that silent form under the dark bank.

From that day he became a wanderer in the great world. He went by river courses and through mountain lakes, always keeping out of danger as well as he could.

Many scraps of good advice he now remembered which had been given him by his grandfather. Perhaps his grandfather had felt the heavy sleep coming upon him and had given the advice that Shaggycoat might take care of himself when he should be left alone; or maybe it was only an instinct that had come down through many generations of aquatic builders. But certain things he did and others he refrained from doing, because something told him that it would be dangerous.

Other bits of information he gathered from sad experience. Many things befell him that probably never would, had he been in company with wiser heads, but, he was an orphan, and the lot of the orphan is always hard.

These are a few of the lessons that he learned during that adventurous summer: that the water is the beaver's element, but on land he is the laughing-stock of all who behold him; that in the water is comparative safety, but on land are many dangers; that the otter is the beaver's deadly enemy, always to be avoided if possible; that minks and muskrats are harmless little creatures, but not suitable company for a self-respecting beaver; that sweet-smelling meat, for which you do not have to work, is dangerous and bites like a clam, holding on even more persistently.

These and other things too numerous to mention Shaggycoat learned, some by observation and some by personal experience.

At first, the summer passed quickly. There were so many things to see, and so many rivers and lakes to visit, but by degrees a sense of loneliness came over him. He had no friend, no companion.

He was positively alone in all the great world.

CHAPTER III

THE COURTSHIP OF SHAGGYCOAT

My young readers may wonder why I have called the beaver, whose fortunes we are following, Shaggycoat, so I will tell them.

The fur of the beaver and the otter is very thick and soft, but, in its natural state, it is quite different from what it is when worn by women in cloaks and coats, for the fine short fur is sprinkled with long hairs that give the coat a shaggy, uneven appearance. In the case of our own beaver, Shaggycoat, these long hairs were very pronounced, so you see the name fitted him nicely.

When the fur of any of these little animals is prepared for market, the long hairs are all pulled out with a small pair of tweezers. This is called plucking the skin.

As the summer days went by and August ripened into September, the loneliness that had oppressed Shaggycoat during the summer grew tenfold and he became more restless than ever. There seemed to be something for which he was looking and longing. It was not right that he should wander up and down lakes and streams and have no living creatures to stop to speak with him. His world was too large; the lakes and streams were too endless. He wanted to share them with somebody or something. He had found 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 his great world. Yet it seemed sometimes as though he had come near to somebody or something, for which he was looking, but it always vanished at the next turn of the stream or at the waterfall.

Thus in this endless searching that came to naught, like searching for the 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 the merry wind would shower down maple leaves until the edge of the stream was 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 for could not be found by searching, perhaps it might be coaxed to come to him. He would try and see. So he gathered some grass and mud and made a very queer patty, which looked much like a child's mud pie. This he smoothed 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 it would know that, for it had a strong musky smell, so he left his love-letter under a bush near a watercourse, and went away to wait developments.

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 to his great joy that the letter had been opened. There was an unmistakable beaver musk about it, and new paw and nose prints upon it.

This was his answer. It said as plainly as words could have said, "I have 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 a tug boat, until he found fresh