78 SQUIRRELS AND OTHER FUR-BEARERS 



squirrel, showing that the weasel sometimes had 

 this game for supper or dinner. 



I continued my digging with renewed energy ; 

 I should yet find the grand depot where all 

 these passages centred ; but the farther I exca- 

 vated, the more complex and baffling the prob- 

 lem became ; the ground was honeycombed with 

 passages. What enemy has this weasel, I said 

 to myself, that he should provide so many ways 

 of escape, that he should have a back door at 

 every turn ? To corner him would be impossi- 

 ble ; to be lost in his fortress was like being 

 lost in Mammoth Cave. How he could bewilder 

 his pursuer by appearing now at this door, now 

 at that ; now mocking him from the attic, now 

 defying him from the cellar ! So far, I had dis- 

 covered but one entrance ; but some of the 

 chambers were so near the surface that it looked 

 as if the planner had calculated upon an emer- 

 gency when he might want to reach daylight 

 quickly in a new place. 



Finally I paused, rested upon my shovel a 

 while, eased my aching back upon the ground, 

 and then gave it up, feeling as I never had be- 

 fore the force of the old saying, that you cannot 

 catch a weasel asleep. I had made an ugly hole 

 in the bank, had handled over two or three times 

 a ton or more of earth, and was apparently no 



