THE HEART OF WINTER 281 



the peculiar footprints of a mink. He walks as it 

 were with his entire body, taking no steps such as 

 other animals do, but bounding so that his hind 

 feet land so near the fore feet that it appears 

 almost like a single footfall. The tracks of the 

 two animals converge until they meet, and show 

 that the owners moved along the same road. 

 The hunter and the hunted, the one suspicious but 

 ignorant, the other keenly alert and dangerously 

 silent. On they go. So long as the rabbit was 

 feeding he was alert, and the cautious mink kept 

 out of sight, knowing full well that to frighten his 

 quarry now would be to lose a meal, for the rabbit 

 would soon finish feeding and then make for some 

 sheltered spot, where he would sleep the wakeful, 

 restless sleep of the ever-hunted. Presently the 

 tracks tell plainly that the rabbit has finished his 

 dinner. As they lead in a roundabout way to the 

 tangle of a fallen hemlock, the mink, with horrible 

 cunning, knows what to expect, for he leaves the 

 bunny tracks and goes by a different way to the 

 hemlock. We follow first in the footprints of the 

 hunted ; they lead over a prostrate snow-covered 

 log, then, after much stopping and turning, as 

 though hesitating, to the densest part of the hem- 

 lock. We turn back to see what has become of 

 the mink ; his tracks lead past trunk and shrub, 

 and show a certainty of purpose which bodes ill for 

 the rabbit. Gradually they approach the fallen 

 hemlock, and we see that they, too, make for the 

 dense cover. We fear the worst. A walk around 

 the tree reveals only the small footprints of the 

 mink. Poor bunny will never again leave tracks 



