The arch grew lower and lower, and the channel
narrower, until we at last absolutely stuck fast among the branches of
the alders which, here grew almost horizontally over the stream. We
could not turn round, and to go further was absolutely impossible;
there was but one mode of extrication, and that was to back straight
out the way we had entered. Our boatman changed his position to the
bow of the boat, and after much labor and exertion, we started down
stream. After two hours of hard work, pushing with the oars and
pulling by the branches, we emerged into daylight, came out into the
open stream, not a little fatigued by our efforts to find the
imaginary pond at the base of the mountains.
This stream, with the broad alder marsh that stretches away on either
side, was doubtless once a beaver dam; and we thought we could
discover where these singular and sagacious animals had erected the
structure that made for them an artificial lake. Our theory on this
subject may have been true or false, but this much is a fact, that in
all this region of lakes and rivers, I have seen no alder or other
marsh of any considerable extent, save this. In the times of old, when
the Indian and his brother the beaver, lived quietly together, before
the greed of the white man had built up a war of extermination between
them, this must have been a glorious country for the beaver.
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