236 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
down stone wall, but that is not strictly true. 
Actually he lived in a hole between two roots of 
an old stump directly against the wall, and the 
wall was his commonest path to and from his 
dwelling. This hole had originally belonged to 
a chipmunk, but Red Slayer, chancing along that 
way on one of his wanderings (he was a great 
wanderer when he went hunting, often traveling 
many miles), had coveted it. He also coveted 
the chipmunk. ‘There were two ways of getting 
the chipmunk; one was to go down into the hole 
and kill him, if he was there, the other was to wait 
close by, in the wall, and pounce on him when he 
came in or out. Red Slayer tried the hole, tenta- 
tively. It went straight down for more than a 
foot, and then evidently swerved at a sharp angle, 
to the level. It was a pretty tight fit even for his 
long, slender body, and promised to offer little 
room to work in. Not that a chipmunk has to be 
respected as a fighter at all, but a nipped nose 
isn’t pleasant. So Red Slayer backed out of the 
hole, withdrew into the wall till his reddish-brown 
body was entirely invisible, and his sharp, sloe- 
black eyes were invisible, too, and proceeded to 
