32 EVERYDAY ADVENTURES 
gency. “Comrades,” said he, placing one hand over 
Alice-Palace’s widely-opened mouth, “‘all is not lost. 
Old woodsmen like ourselves can find food anywhere. 
Follow me. Hist!” 
Like Hawk-Eye and Chingachgook and other 
well-known scouts, the Captain was apt to employ 
that mysterious word when beginning a desperate 
adventure. The Band followed him with entire 
confidence, albeit with certain sniffiings on the part 
of Corporal Alice-Palace. They crossed a tiny brook, 
and found themselves in a little grove of swamp 
maples which had grown up around the fallen trunk 
of the parent tree. The Captain scanned the trees 
carefully. Everywhere were trails in the snow which 
he told them were the tracks of gray squirrels. 
Suddenly he reached up and picked out from between 
a little twig and the smooth trunk of a swamp-maple 
sapling, a big, dry, beautifully-seasoned black wal- 
nut. That started the Band to looking, and they 
found that the little trees were filled with walnuts, 
each one wedged in between twigs or branches so that 
it would not blow down. Up and down and about 
the low trees climbed and scrambled the Band. 
Some of the nuts were hidden and some were in plain 
sight, but altogether there was nearly half a peck of 
them, each one containing a dry, crisp, golden kernel 
which tasted as rich and delicious as it looked. They 
had come upon the winter storehouse of a gray- 
squirrel family. 
Piling the nuts in the lee of a big oak tree where 
the camp-fire was to be made, they followed the Cap- 
