.>v 



1,1 



Bannertail 



except such as they themselves have 

 hidden for just such times. Bannertail 

 quartered the surface of the snow among 

 the silent bare-limbed trees, sniffing, sniff- 

 ing, alert for the faintest whiff. 



A hound would not have found it — 

 his nose is trained for other game. Ban- 

 nertail stopped, swung his keen "divin- 

 ing-rod," advanced a few hops, moved 

 this way and that, then at the point of 

 the most alluring whiff, he began to dig 

 down, down through the snow. 



Soon he was out of sight, for here the 

 drift was nearly two feet deep. But he 

 kept on, then his busy hind feet replac- 

 ing the front ones as diggers for a time, 

 sent flying out on the white surface brown 

 leaves, then black loam. Nothing showed 

 but his tail and little jets of leaf-mould. 

 . His whole arm's-length into the frosty 

 ground did he dig, allured by an ever- 

 growing rich aroma. At last he seized 

 / [ 54 ] 



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