80 Trails to Woods and Waters 



There was a chink between the foliage of 

 the fallen treetop through which the fawn 

 amused himself by staring with mild, wide- 

 open eyes. Now, in the absence of his 

 mother, he fell to watching the life about him 

 through his small window in the green 

 plumes of the fallen tree. 



Presently, something caught his eye that 

 arrested his attention and held it with a fear- 

 ful fascination that he could not shake off. 

 Though it terrified him for some reason to 

 look at what he saw, yet the sight held him, 

 and he could not even shut his eyes. 



A few rods down the mountain side a great, 

 gray cat was creeping stealthily through the 

 woods, stopping every now and then, with 

 one paw upraised, to listen and to test the 

 wind. 



This cat, like the doe down in the valley, 

 was a wild mother, and the pangs of hunger 

 gnawed at her vitals. Three blind kittens in 

 a hollow fallen basswood were waiting for 

 her, and it needed all her natural cunning to 

 feed herself and her kittens. 



