THE SEVEN SLEEPERS 201 
suddenly stopped and let the remainder drop, and 
then sat and reflected for a full minute. At the end 
of that time he became actively ill, and after losing 
all of that fresh snake-lunch, scampered away, an 
emptier, if not a wiser, chipmunk. 
In spite of his gentle ways Chippy lives in a world 
of enemies. Hawks, snakes, cats, boys, and dogs, 
all are his foes. More than all the rest put together, 
however, he fears the devilish red weasel, which 
runs him down relentlessly above and below the 
ground alike. Only in the water has the chipmunk 
a chance to escape. Although the weasel can hold 
him for a few yards, yet in a long swim the chipmunk 
will draw away so far from his pursuer that he will 
generally escape. Underground, if given a few sec- 
onds’ time, he also escapes by a method known to a 
number of the underground folk. Dashing through 
a series of the main burrows, he runs into a side gal- 
lery, and instantly walls himself in so neatly that his 
pursuer rushes past without suspecting his presence. 
For many years one of the out-of-door problems to 
which I was unable to find the answer was how a 
chipmunk could dig a burrow and leave no trace of 
any fresh earth. I examined scores of new chipmunk- 
holes, but never found the least trace of fresh earth 
near the entrance. His secret is to start at the other 
end. This sounds like a joke, but it is exactly what 
he does. He will run a shaft for many feet, coming 
up in some convenient thicket or beneath the slope 
of an overhanging bank. All the earth will be taken 
out through the first hole, which is then plugged 
