One day another beaver cut a number of small aspens and dragged these, one or two at a time, to the pond. After a dozen or more were collected, all were pushed off into the water. Against this small raft the beaver placed his forepaws and swimming pushed it to the food-pile near the centre of the old pond.
At the close of harvest the beavers in Broken Tree colony pond covered their houses above waterline with mud, which they dredged from the pond around the foundations of their houses. Sometimes this mud was moved in their forepaws, sometimes by hooking the tail under and dragging it between their hind legs. Then they dug a channel in the bottom of the pond, which extended from the houses to the dam. Parallel with the dam they dug out another channel; the excavated material was placed on the top of the dam. They also made a shallow ditch in the bottom of the pond that extended from the house to the canal that united the two ponds.
The following summer was a rainy one, and the pond filled with sediment to the height of the dam. Most of this sediment came from the landslide débris or its sliding place. The old Broken Tree colony was abandoned.
Different from most animals, the beaver has a permanent home. The beaver has a strong attachment, or love, for his old home, and will go to endless work and repeatedly risk dangers to avoid moving away. He will dig canals, build dams, or even drag supplies long distances by land through difficult and dangerous places that he may live on in the old place. Here his ancestors may have been born and here he may spend his lifetime. In most cases, however, a colony is not continuously occupied this long. A flood, fire, or the complete exhaustion of food may compel him to move and seek a new home.
In abandoning the Broken Tree pond, one set of dwellers simply went up stream and took possession of the pond which the landslide had formed. Here they gathered supplies and dug a hole or den in the bank but they built no house. An underground tube or passageway connected this den with the bottom of the pond.
The remainder of the colonists started anew about three hundred feet to the north of the old pond. Here a dam about sixty feet long was built, mostly of mud and turf excavated from the area to be filled with water for their pond. They commenced their work by digging a trench and piling the material excavated on the lower side--the beginning of the dam. This ditch was then widened and deepened until the pond was completed. All excavated material was placed upon the dam.