THE TUNNEL RUNNERS 217 



meadow-dwellers found that they had fallen 

 on evil times. The naked meadow, all bare 

 close stubble, open to the eyes of hawk and 

 crow by day, and of the still more deadly 

 owl by night, had become their worst foe. 

 Some drew back to the fringes of the uplands. 

 Some colonized along the winding edges 

 of the stream. Some returned across the 

 dyke to the salt-meadow, where the broad- 

 leaf grass was not yet ripe for mowing ; 

 while the remnant huddled precariously 

 under the bases of the stacks, an easy prey 

 for every foraging weasel. In a little while, 

 however, the short thick herbage of the after- 

 math thrust its head above the stubble. 

 Then new tunnels were run, and life for the 

 scurrying and squeaking meadow-folk once 

 more began to offer its normal attractions. 

 It was now more perilously insecure, how- 

 ever, for the herds of cattle turned to pasture 

 on the aftermath kept it eaten down ; and 

 the shrewd crows learned that their beaks 

 could pierce the fragile and too-open roofs 

 of the tunnels. 



At last the snow came, the deep snow and 

 the hard cold, enemy to almost all the other 

 kindred of the wild, but friendly to the mouse- 

 folk. The snow, some two feet deep all 

 over the meadows, over the dykes, and to 



