THe Missing Tooth 
jaws and locked them, rigid, set, as fixed as jaws of 
stone. 
Death had lingered cruelly. At first the animal had 
been able to gnaw; but as the tooth curved through 
the bones of the face and gradually tightened the 
jaws, the creature got less and less to eat, until, one 
day, creeping out of the burrow for food, the poor 
wretch was unable to get back. 
One seldom comes upon the like of this. It is com- 
moner than we think; but it is usually hidden away 
-and quickly over. How often do we see a wild thing 
sick, —a bird or animal suffering from an accident, or 
dying, like this muskrat, because of some physical 
defect? The struggle between two lives for life—the 
falling of the weak as prey to the strong—is ever 
before us; but this single-handed fight between the 
creature and Nature is a far rarer, silenter tragedy. 
Nature is too swift, too merciless to allow us time 
for sympathy. It was she who taught the old Roman 
to take away his weak and malformed offspring and 
expose it on the hills. 
There is, at best, scarcely a fighting chance in 
the meadow. Only strength and craft may win. The 
muskrat with the missing tooth never enters the race 
gI 
