ii6 Wilderness Ways. 



sure that it was quite dead, then took it by the back 

 of the neck, gUded into the bushes with his stub tail 

 twitching, and became a shadow again. 



Another time I was perched up in a lodged tree, 

 some twenty feet from the ground, watching a big bait 

 of fish which I had put in an open spot for anything 

 that might choose to come and get it. I was hoping 

 for a bear, and so climbed above the ground that he 

 might not get my scent should he come from leeward. 

 It was early autumn, and my intentions were wholly 

 peaceable. I had no weapon of any kind. 



Late in the afternoon something took to chasing a 

 red squirrel near me. I heard them scurrying through 

 the trees, but could see nothing. The chase passed 

 out of hearing, and I had almost forgotten it, for some- 

 thing was moving in the underbrush near my bait, 

 when back it came with a rush. The squirrel, half 

 dead with fright, leaped fi om a spruce-tip to the ground, 

 jumped onto the tree in which I sat, and raced up the 

 incline, almost to my feet, where he sprang to a branch 

 and sat chattering hysterically between two fears. 

 After him came a pine marten, following swiftly, catch- 

 ing the scent of his game, not from the bark or the 

 ground, but apparently from the air. Scarcely had he 

 jumped upon my tree when there was a screech and a 

 rush in the underbrush just below him, and out of the 



