Madame Redbelt 



r 



sand flying backward and deepening a hole 

 precisely as does my fox-terrier Waggles when 

 he hopes he has found the hiding place of a 

 chipmunk. 



In a minute or so she changed her method 

 and began to dig with her jaws. She would 

 scrape down a quantity of earth, gather it 

 into a bundle between her chin and elbows, 

 so to speak, and then backing out, would carry 

 it well back from the entrance and fling it away 

 with a quick flirt, as though glad to be rid of it. 

 Now and then she would pause and choose where 

 she would next drop her load, or stop and push 

 away the loose earth to prevent its rolling back 

 toward her trench, and all together her move- 

 ments were most human and interesting. 



I leaned down close to her without her caring, 

 yet every few minutes she would stop work 

 and walk all about her narrow domain, and 

 sometimes make short flights here and there, 

 as if to make sure no danger were near; but 

 these halts were brief, and at the end of twenty 

 minutes or so she had almost disappeared in 

 her excavation just the tip of her body with 



