64 THE SNOW-WALKERS. 



warrior, cowering to the earth with a mingled look 

 of shame, guilt, and abject fear. A young farmer 

 told me of tracing one with his trap to the border of 

 a wood, where he discovered the cunning rogue try- 

 ing to hide by embracing a small tree. Most animals, 

 when taken in a trap, show fight ; but Reynard has 

 more faith in the nimbleness of his feet than in the 

 terror of his teeth. 



""^''''Entering the woods, the number and variety of the 

 / tracks contrast strongly with the rigid, frozen aspect 

 I of things. Warm jets of life still shoot and play 

 amid this snowy desolation. Fox-tracks are far less 

 numerous than in the fields ; but those of hares, 

 skunks, partridges, squirrels, and mice abound. The 

 mjce tracks are very pretty, and look like a sort of 

 fantastic stitching on the coverlid of the snow. One 

 is curious to know what brings these tiny creatures 

 from their retreats ; they do not seem to be in quest 

 of food, but rather to be traveling about for pleasure 

 or sociability, though always going post-haste, and 

 linking stump with stump and tree with tree by fine, 

 hurried strides. That is when they travel openly ; but 

 they have hidden passages and winding galleries under 

 the snow, which undoubtedly are their main avenues 

 of communication. Here and there these passages 

 rise so near the surface as to be covered by only a 

 *rail arch of snow, and a slight ridge betrays their 

 course to the eye. I know him well. He is known 

 to the farmer as the " deer-mouse," to the naturalist 

 48 the white-footed mouse (Hesperomys leucopus) a 



