by Mayne Reid
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
HOW TO BUILD A LOG-CABIN.
"I need not describe the joy of my wife and the rest when I returned,and related to them what I had seen, as well as my adventure with thewolverene. The discovery that our new-made lake was nothing else than agreat beaver-dam at once decided the question as to our remaining in thevalley. Here was a source of wealth to us far greater than would havebeen any situation in the mines of Mexico--in fact, better than a mineitself. The skin of every beaver in that dam I knew to be worth aguinea and a half. I saw there were at least an hundred of them--theremight be many more--and how soon would these multiply into thousands,producing annually four or five young to every pair of them. We couldtend them--taking care to provide them with food--and destroy thewolverenes and any other of their enemies, that might exist in thevalley. They would thus increase the faster, and we could easilyprevent them from becoming too numerous by trapping the older ones, andcarefully preserving their skins. After several years thus employed, wecould return to civilised life, carrying with us enough of theirvaluable fur to sell for a smart fortune.
"The prospect of staying where we were was now delightful--the more so,as I was satisfied it was the best thing I could do. Even had I beenable to procure a pair of fresh oxen at that moment, I should not havemoved a step farther. What Mary had said in jest was now likely to berealised in earnest, _We might yet make our fortune in the Desert_!
"Of course, it was a settled point--we resolved to remain.
"The first thing to be done, then, was to provide ourselves with ahouse. It would be a `log-cabin,' of course; and putting up a log-cabinwas a mere bagatelle to Cudjo. During our residence in Virginia, he hadbuilt two or three on my farm; and no man knew better than he how to dothe thing. No man knew better than he how to shape the logs, notchthem, and lay them firmly in their beds--no man knew better how to splitthe `clap-boards,' lay them on the rafters, and bind them fast, withouteven a single nail--no man knew how to `chink' the walls, clay thechimney, and hang the door of a log-cabin better than Cudjo. No. Iwill answer for that--Cudjo could construct a log-cabin as well as themost renowned architect in the world.
"There was plenty of the right kind of timber at hand--plenty oftulip-trees with their tall straight trunks rising to the height offifty feet without a branch; and for the next two days the axe of Cudjocould be heard with its constant `check--check,' while every now andthen the crash of a falling tree woke the echoes of the valley. WhileCudjo was felling the timber and cutting it into logs of a properlength, none of the rest of us were idle. In cooking our meals,scouring the vessels, and looking after the children, Mary foundsufficient employment; while Frank, Harry, and I, with the help of ourhorse Pompo, were able to drag the logs forward to the spot where we haddesigned to put up the cabin.
"On the third day, Cudjo notched the logs, and on the fourth we raisedthe walls up to the square. On the fifth, we set up the gables andrafters, which, you know, is done by shortening the gable-logssuccessively, as you go upward, and tying each pair of them by a pair ofrafters notched into them, at the ends, precisely as the wall-logsbelow. A ridge-pole completed the frame, and that was laid by theevening of the fifth day.
"Upon the sixth day, Cudjo went to work upon a large oak which he hadfelled and cut into lengths of about four feet each, at the beginning ofour operations. It was now somewhat dry, so as to split easily; andwith his axe and a set of wedges he attacked it. By sunset, he had apile of clap-boards beside him as large as a wagon--quite enough to`shingle' the roof of our house. During that day, I employed myself intempering the clay for chinking the walls and plastering the chimney.
"On the seventh day, we all rested from our labour. We did so becauseit was Sunday. We had resolved ever to keep the Sabbath. Though theeyes of men could not see us--which I fear is too often the reason forobserving the sacred day--we knew that the eye of God was upon us, evenin that remote valley.
"We rose as early as usual, and after eating our breakfast, the Biblewas brought forth, and we offered--the only sacrifice to Himacceptable--the sacrifice of our humble prayers. Mary had been busyduring the week, and our little ones were dressed out, as if for aholiday. Taking them along with us, we all walked down to the lake andsome distance around its edge. We saw that the beavers had been as busyin building as we; and already their cone-shaped dwellings appearedabove the water--some of them near the shore, and others upon the littleislets. There was only one which we could reach, and this we examinedwith great curiosity. It stood only a few yards from the shore, but ata place where the water was deep on its front side. It was nearlycone-shaped, or rather the form of a bee-hive; and was constructed outof stones, sticks and mud mixed with grass. Part of it was under water,but although we could not look into the interior, we knew that there wasan upper story above water-mark--for we saw the ends of the joists thatsupported the second floor. The entrance was toward the centre of thelake and under the water--so that in going out of and into his house,the beaver is always under the necessity of making a dive. But he doesnot mind that, as it seems to be rather a pleasure to him than aninconvenience. There was no entrance toward the land, as we had oftenheard. Indeed, it would be bad policy in the beaver, thus to make adoor by which his enemy, the wolverene, could easily get in and destroyhim. The houses were all plastered over with mud, which, by theflapping of the tails and the constant paddling of the broad web-feet,had become as smooth as if the mud had been laid on with a trowel. Weknew that they were also plastered inside, so as to render them warm andcommodious in winter.
"Some of these dwellings were not regular cones, but rather of an ovalshape; and sometimes two were placed, as it were, `under one roof,' soas to steady them in the water, and save labour in the building. Theywere all pretty large--many of them rising the height of a man above thesurface of the lake, and with broad tops, where the beavers delighted tosit and sun themselves. Each house was built by its own inhabitants,and each of them was inhabited by a single pair of beavers--man andwife--and in some instances where there were families by four or five.Some of them who had finished their houses earlier than the rest, hadalready commenced gathering their provisions for the winter. Theseconsisted of the leaves and soft twigs of several species of trees--suchas willow, birch, and mulberry--and we saw collections of these floatingin the water in front of several of the houses.
"It was late in the season for beavers to be constructing a new dam. Itis generally in spring when they perform that labour; but it was evidentthat the present colony had just arrived--no doubt driven by trappers orIndians, or perhaps drought, from their last settlement, hundreds ofmiles away. We conjectured that they must have come up the stream thatran away to the eastward.
"They must have entered the valley some time before we discovered them,as it would have taken them several days to gnaw down the trees andaccumulate the materials for the dam that had so suddenly started up toalarm us. Some of these trees were nearly a foot in diameter, whilemany of the stones--which they had rolled up or carried between theirfore-paws and throat--would have weighed nearly a score of pounds.
"It was evident, then, they had arrived late in the season, and hadworked hard to get ready for the winter. But Cudjo and I weredetermined, as soon as we should have finished our building operations,to lend them a hand in laying in their stock of provisions."
