8 WINTER 



for a reason. You are watching that reason all along ; 

 you are pack-fellow to the hound ; you hunt with him. 



Here the hound had thrust his muzzle into a snow- 

 capped pile of slashings, had gone clear round the 

 pile, then continued on his way. But we stopped ; for 

 out of the pile, in a single, direct line, ran a number 

 of mouse prints, going and coming. A dozen white- 

 footed mice might have traveled that road since the 

 day before, when the snow had ceased falling. 



We entered the tiny road, for in this kind of hunt- 

 ing a mouse is as good as a mink, and found ourselves 

 descending the woods toward the garden patch below. 

 Halfway down we came to a great red oak, into a hole 

 at the base of which, as into the portal of some 

 mighty castle, ran the road of the mice. That was the 

 end of it. There was not a single straying footprint 

 beyond the tree. 



I reached in as far as my arm would go, and drew 

 out a fistful of pop-corn cobs. So here was part of my 

 scanty crop ! I pushed in again, and gathered up a 

 bunch of chestnut shells, hickory-nuts and several 

 neatly rifled hazelnuts. This was story enough. 

 There must be a family of mice living under the 

 slashing-pile, who for some good reason kept their 

 stores here in the recesses of this ancient red oak. 

 Or was this some squirrel's barn being pilfered by 

 the mice, as my barn is the year round ? It was not 

 all plain. But this question, this constant riddle 

 of the woods, is part of our constant joy in the 



