44 Wilderness Ways. 



terror. Kagax was . already halfway up the tree, the 

 red fire blazing in his eyes. 



The squirrel rushed to the end of a branch, jumped 

 to a smaller spruce, ran that up to the top; then, 

 because his fright had made him forget the tree paths 

 that ordinarily he knew very well, he sprang out and 

 down to the ground, a clear fifty feet, breaking his 

 fall by catching and holding for an instant a swaying 

 fir tip on the way. Then he rushed pell-mell over 

 logs and rocks, and through the underbrush to a 

 maple, and from that across a dozen trees to another 

 giant spruce, where he ran up and down desperately 

 over half the branches, crossing and crisscrossing his 

 trail, and dropped panting at last into a little crevice 

 under a broken limb. There he crouched into the 

 smallest possible space and watched, with an awful 

 fear in his eyes, the rough trunk below. 



Far behind him came Kagax, grim, relentless, silent 

 as death. He paid no attention to scratching claws 

 nor swaying branches, never looking for the jerking 

 red tip of Meeko's tail, nor listening for the loud 

 thump of his feet when he struck the ground. A 

 pair of brave little flycatchers saw the chase and 

 rushed at the common enemy, striking him with 

 their beaks, and raising an outcry that brought a 

 score of frightened, clamoring birds to the scene. 



