CHAPTER VIII 
RED SLAYER AND THE TERROR 
ED SLAYER lived in an old stone wall 
which ran up the hill toward the woods, 
dividing two peaceful pastures where in summer 
the cattle grazed, and in winter the field-mice 
made tunnels under the snow and matted grasses, 
radiating out in all directions to reach the richest 
stores of seeds and roots. From any of the in- 
numerable holes, like little cave mouths, in his 
wall, Red Slayer could look out upon the world 
and see the pleasant countryside—the pasture 
slopes, the green woods above climbing up to the 
mountain shoulder, the road below where the 
wagons rattled past or the motors whizzed, the 
farm -fields and orchards and barns and houses 
beyond, and the broad meadow where the brook 
ran half hidden in sedge and his cousins, the mink, 
lived well. Many tourists, going by, looked on 
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