This was always the post of danger, being exposed to sudden attack by prowling savages, who often dogged the footsteps of the party in their journeyings to see what they could steal.

But Cameron was an old hand, and they found it difficult to escape his vigilant eye.
From this point all the trappers were sent forth in small parties every morning in various directions, some on foot and some on horseback, according to the distances they had to go; but they never went farther than twenty miles, as they had to return to camp every evening.
Each trapper had ten steel traps allowed him.

These he set every night, and visited every morning, sometimes oftener when practicable, selecting a spot in the stream where many trees had been cut down by beavers for the purpose of damming up the water.

In some places as many as fifty tree stumps were seen in one spot, within the compass of half an acre, all cut through at about eighteen inches from the root.

We may remark, in passing, that the beaver is very much like a gigantic water-rat, with this marked difference, that its tail is very broad and flat like a paddle.