HUNTING THE SNOW 187 



school or office ; but he goes not by streets, but 

 by trees, never crossing more of the open in a 

 single rush than the space between him and the 

 nearest tree that will take him on his way. 



What interested us here in the woods was the 

 fact that a second series of tracks just like the 

 first, only about half as large, dogged the larger 

 tracks persistently, leaping tree for tree, and land- 

 ing track for track with astonishing accuracy 

 tracks which, had they not been evidently those 

 of a smaller squirrel, would have read to us most 

 menacingly. 



As this was the mating season for squirrels, 

 I suggested that it might have been a kind of 

 Atalanta's race here in the woods. But why did 

 so little a squirrel want to marry one so big*? 

 They would not look well together, was the an- 

 swer of the small boys. They thought it much 

 more likely that Father Squirrel had been play- 

 ing wood-tag with one of his children. 



Then, suddenly, as sometimes happens in the 

 woods, the true meaning of the signs was literally 

 hurled at us, for down the hill, squealing and pant- 

 ing, rushed a large male gray squirrel, with a red 

 squirrel like a shadow, like a weasel, at his heels. 



