i6o 



the hole. But scarcely was the thought 

 formed when a fierce rumbling clatter 

 \komenos sounded in the bank. The mink shot out, 

 ^tcasf a streak of red showing plainly across his 

 brown face. After him came a kingfisher, 

 clattering out a storm of invectives, and aid- 

 ing his progress by vicious jabs at his rear. 

 He had made a miscalculation that time ; the 

 old mother bird was at home waiting for him, 

 and drove her powerful beak at his evil eye 

 the moment it appeared at the inner end of 

 the tunnel. That took the longing for young 

 kingfisher all out of Cheokhes. He plunged 

 headlong down the bank, the bird swooping 

 after him with a rattling alarm that brought 

 another kingfisher in a twinkling. The mink 

 dived, but it was useless to attempt escape in 

 that way; the keen eyes above followed his 

 flight perfectly. When he came to the sur- 

 face, twenty feet away, both birds were over 

 him and dropped like plummets on his 

 head. So they drove him down stream 

 and out of sight. 



Years afterward I solved the second prob- 

 lem suggested by the kingfisher's den, when 



