THE TUNNEL RUNNERS 221 



marsh-mouse went his way secure. He 

 kept every exit of his tunnels perfectly 

 hidden among the thorny tips of the wild 

 rose-bushes, which stood up some five or six 

 inches above the top of the snow. The 

 successive families which were born and 

 grew up in his safe burrow passed out into 

 the maze, to be merged in the precarious and 

 passing legions. His first mate disappeared 

 mysteriously, and as he had no facilities 

 for pressing an inquiry among the hawks 

 or weasels, he never knew the details of her 

 disappearance. Her place was speedily filled 

 in the burrow. But to the brown mouse 

 himself nothing happened. He confined his 

 nightly revels beneath the moon to the re- 

 gion of the rose thickets, and so eluded effect- 

 ually the eyes and claws of the owls. 



It was along toward the end of winter, how- 

 ever, when the brown mouse met with his 

 most dangerous adventure. Shunning, as 

 he did so craftily, the games on the open 

 snow, he was wont to amuse himself and 

 incidentally seek variations', in his diet be- 

 neath the ice of his threshold stream. An 

 expert swimmer and diver, almost as swift 

 as his cousin, the musk-rat, or his heredi- 

 tary enemy, the mink, he would swim long 

 distances under the water, finding fresh 



