46 Wilderness Ways. 



there was a flash of sharp teeth, and the squirrel fell, 

 striking the ground with a heavy thump. Kagax ran 

 down the trunk, sniffed an instant at the body with- 

 out touching it, and darted away to the form among 

 the ferns. He had passed it at daylight when he 

 was too heavy for killing. 



Halfway to the lake, he stopped; a thrilling song 

 from a dead spruce top bubbled out over the darken- 

 ing woods. When a hermit thrush sings like that, 

 his nest is somewhere just below. Kagax began 

 twisting in and out like a snake among the bushes, 

 till a stir in a tangle of raspberry vines, which no ears 

 but his or an owl's would ever notice, made him 

 shrink close to the ground and look up. The red 

 fire blazed in his eyes again; for there was Mother 

 Thrush just settling onto her nest, not five feet from 

 his head. 



To climb the raspberry vines without shaking them, 

 and so alarming the bird, was out of the question; 

 but there was a fire-blasted tree just behind. Kagax 

 climbed it stealthily on the side away from the bird, 

 crept to a branch over the nest, and leaped down. 

 Mother Thrush was preening herself sleepily, feeling 

 the grateful warmth of her eggs and listening to 

 the wonderful song overhead, when the blow came. 

 Before she knew what it was, the sharp teeth had met 



