As I said before, talking while hunting beaver is forbidden; and the hunter conveys his wishes to the steersman by signs, thus: To draw his attention he oscillates the canoe slightly; to move the canoe ahead the motion of paddling made by throwing the opening hand inboard; to alter the course of the canoe is done by signing with the hand either to the right or to the left, as desired; to stop the canoe's headway when getting too close to the game is done by gentle downward patting of the hand, etc. Being already versed in this dumb language, we shoved away and took up a position near the lodge, but to the leeward of it, and waited. The sun having already gone down behind the forest, on the other side of the lake, we had not long to wait until a beaver broke water and swam away in a direction from us. Wa-sa-Kejic shook his head, as much as to say, "We will go after that fellow later on." The first was followed quickly by a second, a third and a fourth! Then, after waiting for fully fifteen minutes and no other appearing, Wa-sa-Kejic made signs to go ahead; this we did slowly, without taking the sharp-bladed paddle from the water. Presently we heard a noise as if a pig were supping up from a trough. This was one of the beavers crunching up young twigs in the water. The canoe was edged slowly toward the land, with Wa-sa-Kejic on the alert, both dogheads full-cocked and ready for action. Presently the downward motion of the hand was given, the gun brought deliberately up to the shoulder, and the next instant the explosion, followed almost as one shot by the second barrel! A thick smoke hung between us and the shore, but we could hear kicking and splashing of the water; that told the shot was true. The beaver had ceased to struggle by the time we reached the shore. "But for what was the other shot?" I asked Wa-sa-Kejic. "For that," he answered, pointing to another beaver stone, dead on the bank; and then he laughed, for there was no necessity of keeping quiet any longer, for the shots had frightened any other beaver in the vicinity. "We may as well go to camp now," continued Wa-sa-Kejic, "and we will see our traps in the morning." From the fact of our having come ashore late, and perhaps more because of the hearty supper we made off of roast beaver, we did not awake until the sun was high. We immediately partook of a hasty breakfast of tea Gallette and pork and went to see the traps. "Fortunate?" Well, yes! We found one in each trap; and returned during the afternoon to the post. The Indian gave me the meat of two beavers for myself.