32 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 



gency. "Comrades," said he, placing one hand over 

 Alice-Palace's widely-opened mouth, "all is not lost. 

 Old woodsmen like ourselves can find food anywhere. 

 Follow me. Hist!" 



Like Hawk-Eye and Chingachgook and other 

 well-known scouts, the Captain was apt to employ 

 that mysterious word when beginning a desperate 

 adventure. The Band followed him with entire 

 confidence, albeit with certain snifHings on the part 

 of Corporal Alice-Palace. They crossed a tiny brook, 

 and found themselves in a little grove of swamp 

 maples which had grown up around the fallen trunk 

 of the parent tree. The Captain scanned the trees 

 carefully. Everywhere were trails in the snow which 

 he told them were the tracks of gray squirrels. 

 Suddenly he reached up and picked out from between 

 a little twig and the smooth trunk of a swamp-maple 

 sapling, a big, dry, beautifully-seasoned black wal- 

 nut. That started the Band to looking, and they 

 found that the little trees were filled with walnuts, 

 each one wedged in between twigs or branches so that 

 it would not blow down. Up and down and about 

 the low trees climbed and scrambled the Band. 

 Some of the nuts were hidden and some were in plain 

 sight, but altogether there was nearly half a peck of 

 them, each one containing a dry, crisp, golden kernel 

 which tasted as rich and delicious as it looked. They 

 had come upon the winter storehouse of a gray- 

 squirrel family. 



Piling the nuts in the lee of a big oak tree where 

 the camp-fire was to be made, they followed the Cap- 



