Just as in the life of every man there is one big, controlling influence, either for good or bad, so in the life of Baree the beaver pond was largely an arbiter of destiny.  Where he might have gone if he had not discovered it, and what might have happened to him, are matters of conjecture.  But it held him.  It began to take the place of the old windfall, and in the beavers themselves he found a companionship which made up, in a way, for his loss of the protection and friendship of Kazan and Gray Wolf.

This companionship, if it could be called that, went just so far and no farther.  With each day that passed the older beavers became more accustomed to seeing Baree.  At the end of two weeks, if Baree had gone away, they would have missed him—­but not in the same way that Baree would have missed the beavers.  It was a matter of good-natured toleration on their part.  With Baree it was different.  He was still uskahis, as Nepeese would have said.  He still wanted mothering; he was still moved by the puppyish yearnings which he had not yet had the time to outgrow; and when night came—­to speak that yearning quite plainly—­he had the desire to go into the big beaver house with Umisk and his chums and sleep.

During this fortnight that followed Beaver Tooth’s exploit on the dam Baree ate his meals a mile up the creek, where there were plenty of crayfish.  But the pond was home.  Night always found him there, and a large part of his day.  He slept at the end of the dam, or on top of it on particularly clear nights, and the beavers accepted him as a permanent guest.  They worked in his presence as if he did not exist.

Baree was fascinated by this work, and he never grew tired of watching it.  It puzzled and bewildered him.  Day after day he saw them float timber and brush through the water for the new dam.  He saw this dam growing steadily under their efforts.  One day he lay within a dozen feet of an old beaver who was cutting down a tree six inches through.  When the tree fell, and the old beaver scurried away, Baree scurried, too.  Then he came back and smelled of the cutting, wondering what it was all about, and why Umisk’s uncle or grandfather or aunt had gone to all that trouble.

He still could not induce Umisk and the other young beavers to join him in play, and after the first week or so he gave up his efforts.  In fact, their play puzzled him almost as much as the dam-building operations of the older beavers.  Umisk, for instance, was fond of playing in the mud at the edge of the pond.  He was like a very small boy.  Where his elders floated timbers from three inches to a foot in diameter to the big dam, Umisk brought small sticks and twigs no larger around than a lead pencil to his playground, and built a make-believe dam of his own.