INTO THE TRAP. 207 
describable swiftness, and instantly there was 
commotion. It was as if the very snow itself 
had come to life and fled, making noise enough 
in the stillness to wake the very bears and the 
beavers in their winter lairs. 
Three fat birds, white as driven snow, burst 
upwards and whirred away like miniature 
aeroplanes, and they were ptarmigan. 
One beast, white as carded wool, streaked 
off almost invisibly over the snow; and one 
remained, squealing, with the mink’s fangs 
buried in the back of its neck; and they 
were hares. 
Another beast, white as the purest china, 
stood, after one jump, with arched back and 
bristling fur, reviling the mink in a high- 
pitched, fiendish key, and he was a weasel. 
None of them from the first had been visible 
to the mink, because they were motionless 
white objects on motionless white snow—for 
which purpose, indeed, Nature took the trouble 
to change the colour of their coats each year. 
But that made no odds to him, a mink’s nose 
being as good as a human pair of eyes any 
day, and some days a bit better. 
The mink hunted the weasel up a tree for 
his insolence, and this took him some time. 
Then he returned to his hare—and, to his 
surprise, there was no hare. 
