A TREE-TOP AERONAUT 179 



a farce had gone on long enough, he sprang 

 with all his strength upon the top of the cylin- 

 der, in the direction in which it was spinning. 

 It was a great mistake The cylinder did not 

 stop. It spun on and shot him off indig- 

 nantly, head-first, into space, and brought him 

 with a stupefying thud upon the roots of the 

 nearest tree. Very sore and disconcerted he 

 picked himself up, gave one look at the spin- 

 ning mystery, and slunk off behind the tree, in 

 a humbleness of spirit such as few of his 

 irrepressible tribe have ever known. 



All but paralysed by exhaustion and by the 

 utter extremity of his fear, the flying squirrel 

 stopped racing with his wheel. With all 

 four hand-like paws, and even with his teeth, 

 he clung to the wires, till presently his weight 

 brought it to a standstill. Then he crept 

 through the exit and crouched, trembling 

 and panting, on the floor of the outer chamber. 

 Here, soon after sun-up, the boy, who was an 

 early riser, found him. He was puzzled, was 

 the boy, over that smear of blood on the cage 

 door ; but, finding no clue to the events of 

 the night, he was obliged to lay the matter 

 away among the many insoluble enigmas 

 wherewith the ancient wood so continually 

 and so mockingly provokes the invader of its 

 intimacies. 



