Read "In Beaver World" by Enos A. Mills online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
In the Medicine Bow Mountains one December day, I came upon a beaver house that was surrounded by a pack of wolves. These beasts were trying to break into the house. Apparently an early autumn snow had blanketed the house and thus prevented its walls from freezing. The soft condition of the walls, along with the extreme hunger of the wolves, led to this assault. Two of these animals were near the top of the house clawing away at a rapid rate. Now and then one of the sticks or poles in the house-wall was encountered, and at this the wolf would bite and tear furiously. Occasionally one of the wolves caught a resisting stick in his teeth, and, leaning back, shook his head, endeavoring with all his might to tear it out. A number of wolves lay about expectant; a few sat up eagerly on haunches, while others moved about snarling, driving the others off a few yards, to be in turn driven off themselves.
Shortly before they discovered me, there was a fierce fight on top of the house, in which several mixed.