A LIFE OF FEAR 137 



or less active all the season. Long before the 

 December snow, the chipmunk has for days been 

 making hourly trips to his den with full pockets 

 of nuts or corn or buckwheat, till his bin holds 

 , enough to carry him through to April. He need 

 not, and I believe does not, set foot out of doors 

 during the whole winter. But the red squirrel 

 trusts more to luck. 



As alert and watchful as the red squirrel is, he 

 is frequently caught by the cat. My Nig, as 

 black as ebony, knows well the taste of his flesh. 

 I have known him to be caught by the black 

 snake and successfully swallowed. The snake, 

 no doubt, lay in ambush for him. 



This fear, this ever-present source of danger 

 of the wild creatures, we know little about. Prob- 

 ably the only person in the civilized countries 

 who is no better off than the animals in this 

 respect is the Czar of Russia. He would not 

 even dare gather nuts as openly as my squirrel. 

 A blacker and more terrible cat than Nig would 

 be lying in wait for him and would make a 

 meal of him. The early settlers in this country 

 must have experienced something of this dread of 

 apprehension from the Indians. Many African 

 tribes now live in the same state of constant 

 fear of the slave-catchers or of other hostile 

 tribes. Our ancestors, back in prehistoric times, 



