50 Wilderness Ways. 



a foolish field mouse had built a nest in a tangle of 

 dry brakes. Kagax caught and killed the mother as 

 she rushed out in alarm. Then he tore the nest open 

 and killed all the little ones. He tasted the blood 

 of one and went on again. 



The failure to catch the wood mouse still rankled 

 in his head and kept his eyes bright red. Suddenly 

 he turned from his course along the lake shore; he 

 began to climb the ridge. Up and up he went, cross- 

 ing a dozen trails that ordinarily he would have fol- 

 lowed, till he came to where a dead tree had fallen 

 and lodged against a big spruce, near the summit. 

 There he crouched in the underbrush and waited. 



Up near the top of the dead tree, a pair of pine 

 martens had made their den in the hollow trunk, and 

 reared a family of young martens that drew Kagax's 

 evil thoughts like a magnet. The marten belongs to 

 the weasel's own family; therefore, as a choice bit of 

 revenge, Kagax would rather kill him than anything 

 else. A score of times he had crouched in this same 

 place and waited for his chance. But the marten is 

 larger and stronger every way than the weasel, and, 

 though shyer, almost as savage in a fight. And 

 Kagax was afraid. 



But to-night Kagax was in a more vicious mood 

 than ever before ; and a weasel's temper is always the 



