Read "Watched by Wild Animals" by Enos A. Mills online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Cold weather came one fall before my new beaver neighbours had laid in their winter's food. They had harvested one food supply several miles down stream but a fierce forest fire had devastated the region while they were in the midst of their preparations for winter and left their home site unliveable. The beavers in a body started off to found a new colony, having the hardships and adventures that ever fall to pioneers.
The place selected for their new home was on a tributary stream not far from my cabin. Here they built a typical house of sticks, sod, and mud. The stream ran through an old glacier meadow partly overgrown with forest. One side carried a belt of pines. Beyond the pines was a ragged and extensive growth of quaking aspen. Up stream the mountain rose steeply to the summit of Mt. Meeker.