It is barely possible, however, that there was an old grievance
on the beavers' part, which they sought to square when they
caught Keeonekh on the lake. When beavers build their houses on
the lake shore, without the necessity for making a dam, they
generally build a tunnel slanting up from the lake's bed to their
den or house on the bank. Now Keeonekh fishes under the ice in
winter more than is generally supposed. As he must breathe after
every chase he must needs know all the air-holes and dens in the
whole lake. No matter how much he turns and doubles in the chase
after a trout, he never loses his sense of direction, never
forgets where the breathing places are. When his fish is seized
he makes a bee line under the ice for the nearest place where he
can breathe and eat. Sometimes this lands him, out of breath, in
the beaver's tunnel; and the beaver must sit upstairs in his own
house, nursing his wrath, while Keeonekh eats fish in his
hallway; for there is not room for both at once in the tunnel,
and a fight there or under the ice is out of the question. As the
beaver eats only bark--the white inner layer of "popple" bark is
his chief dainty--he cannot understand and cannot tolerate this
barbarian, who eats raw fish and leaves the bones and fins and
the smell of slime in his doorway. The beaver is exemplary in his
neatness, detesting all smells and filth; and this may possibly
account for some of his enmity and his savage attacks upon
Keeonekh when he catches him in a good place.

Not the least interesting of Keeonekh's queer ways is his habit
of sliding down hill, which makes a bond of sympathy and brings
him close to the boyhood memories of those who know him.

I remember one pair of otters that I watched for the better part