THE SUMMIT OF THE YEARS 



fear, and the weasel caught it and had killed it before 

 I got near them. When I reached them, I jumped 

 out and picked up the rabbit with the weasel still 

 holding fast, but I finally shook it off and it hid itself 

 in a thorn hedge near by. Having no use for the 

 rabbit, I dropped it on the ground and drove on a 

 bit, when I stopped and looked back, curious to see 

 what would happen. The weasel, feeling safe and 

 no doubt hungry, returned to its kill and dragged it 

 into the long grasses and plants of the hedgerow. 



" Another time, while musing and anon casting a 

 fly over the placid waters of a favorite trout stream 

 in the same locality, I was startled by a rabbit 

 jumping into the pool and swimming to the other 

 side, followed in a moment or so by a weasel, who 

 also took to the water, being so close that he evi- 

 dently saw the rabbit. They both disappeared in 

 the vegetation beyond, but hearing the rabbit's 

 plaintive cry shortly after, was evidence to me that 

 another tragedy had been enacted." 



My Kansas correspondent, a lawyer, tells me of an 

 incident related to him by an old Pennsylvania friend, 

 a man of prominence and absolutely reliable. This 

 time the weasel was pursuing a rat. While standing 

 in a large cellar under a stonework, he heard a rat 

 scream with the most evident fear and distress. 

 " Looking in the direction of the noise, he saw a very 

 large store rat running rapidly along the cellar floor 

 and up the stairway; the rat went to the outer edge, 

 278 



