74 NEIGHBOURS UNKNOWN 



tented the racoon. Having killed his victim 

 instantly with a cheerful nip behind the ears, 

 he sat by the pool's edge and proceeded to 

 souse the morsel vigorously up and down in 

 the water before eating it. Not until it was 

 washed almost to a rag did he seem to think 

 it clean enough to eat, and then, after all his 

 trouble, he nibbled hardly the half of it, 

 flinging the remnant into the water with the 

 air of a wasteful child who has never known 

 what it feels like to go hungry. 



From the edge of the brook the racoon ran 

 up the bank. After a pause he turned aim- 

 lessly into the still turmoil of the trunks and 

 roots. Every fallen trunk, every long tentacle 

 of a root that he came to, he would mount 

 it and run along it to the end in whatever 

 direction it led. As the luck of the wild 

 would have it, this erratic progress brought 

 him presently to one of the great buttressing 

 roots of the tree of the hornets. He mounted 

 it, of course, followed it nearly to the base of 

 the trunk, and stopped abruptly at the sight 

 of the bear. 



The bear, who had but recently finished 

 his meal of fish, was lying half asleep on the 

 dry tamarack needles between the roots. 

 He had well eaten, but the sting in his mouth 

 still fretted him, and his mood was ugly. 



