OLV STORT 5 



can see no squirrel racing over the branches. Wood- 

 peckers ? Why, there's not a bird in the whole place. 

 Snakes ? That writer was a humbug. Impatiently he 

 kicked away a loose stone lying- in the path, crumpled 

 up the offending newspaper, and clattered homeward 

 down the path again. And he said well, never 

 mind what he said ; but he came back wrathful, with 

 the fixed conviction that the whole thing was a fraud, 

 evolved from the depths of some writer's consciousness 

 by the aid of a too fertile imagination. 



And yet, had he but known it, that sketch was written 

 on that very path by a man who, through those very 

 woods, stole softly and alone j whose feet were hushed on 

 green and mossy ways \ who left at home the bright-eyed 

 terrier who begged so hard to be allowed to follow 

 knowing well the happy hunting grounds her master 

 loved to haunt. No sound of footsteps then upon the 

 rocky path disturbed the squirrel at his feast. He 

 paused, indeed, a moment, to peer with bright black eyes 

 down through the leafy arches, but he made no sign of 

 flight. The gold-crests frolicked in the swaying boughs 

 unconscious of the passing steps beneath. A rabbit 

 cantering lightly down the slight path among the bushes 

 came face to face with a strange figure; stopped, and 

 looked up with big dark eyes ; was doubtful, and jogged 

 back a yard or two ; then came on again, and seeing no 

 movement, passed contentedly, without a thought of 

 danger. 



As for snakes, the oldest and most cautious hand 

 knows well how hard it is to get a good sight of the. 



