CS}x\&tmaB in f^c TlJoob^ 



oak, where, in the thin snow, there were signs of 

 something like a Christmas revel. The ground was 

 sprinkled with acorn shells and trampled over with 

 feet of several kinds and sizes, — quail, jay, and par- 

 tridge feet ; rabbit, squirrel, and mice feet, all over 

 the snow as the feast of acorns had gone on. Hun- 

 dreds of the acorns were lying about, gnawed away 

 at the cup end, where the shell was thinnest, many 

 of them further broken and cleaned out by the birds. 

 As I sat studying the signs in the snow, my eye 

 caught a tiny trail leading out from the others 

 straight away toward a broken pile of cord-wood. 

 The tracks were planted one after the other, so 

 directly in line as to seem like the prints of a single 

 foot. "That's a weasel's trail," I said, "the death's- 

 head at this feast," and followed it slowly to the 

 wood. A shiver crept over me as I felt, even sooner 

 than I saw, a pair of small sinister eyes fixed upon 

 mine. The evil pointed head, heavy but alert, and 

 with a suggestion of fierce strength out of all rela- 

 tion to the slender body, was watching me from 

 between the sticks of cord-wood. And so he had been 

 watching the mice and birds and rabbits feasting 

 under the tree ! 



31 



