The round, rough beaver houses projected from the water.

Like the rabbits, the beavers had become shy.
Gradually, however, as Venters and Bess knelt low, holding the dogs, the beavers emerged to swim with logs and gnaw at cottonwoods and pat mud walls with their paddle-like tails, and, glossy and shiny in the sun, to go on with their strange, persistent industry.

They were the builders.
The lake was a mud-hole, and the immediate environment a scarred and dead region, but it was a wonderful home of wonderful animals.
"Look at that one--he puddles in the mud," said Bess.

"And there! See him dive! Hear them gnawing! I'd think they'd break their teeth.

How's it they can stay out of the water and under the water ?" And she laughed.
Then Venters and Bess wandered farther, and, perhaps not all unconsciously this time, wended their slow steps to the cave of the cliff-dwellers, where she liked best to go.
The tangled thicket and the long slant of dust and little chips of weathered rock and the steep bench of stone and the worn steps all were arduous work for Bess in the climbing.