238 ON THE EDGE OF THE WILDERNESS 
some of the blood which flowed. He was not 
very hungry, as a matter of fact, but he bit open 
the chipmunk’s skull and ate the brains. That 
quite satisfied him, and he turned to an investiga- 
tion of the burrow. 
The hole went down, he found, largely through 
soft earth and roots rotted to a brown pulp, so 
that he had no difficulty in squeezing and pound- 
ing the sides apart with his shoulders, making the 
tunnel large enough for his own comfort. At 
eighteen inches below the surface, it ceased 
descending, and ran along on the level, reaching 
in a few feet a sort of chamber. The shaft con- 
tinued, apparently indefinitely, but beyond this 
point it entered gravel, and Red Slayer was 
averse to the effort required to enlarge the bore. 
It made a perfectly good home as it was. More- 
over, as winter was coming on, the chipmunk had 
brought in some nice, dry, dead leaves for a bed. 
There was also the smell of hazelnuts in the 
tube—but that didn’t interest Red Slayer in the 
least. Nothing interested him in the line of food 
except meat. He curled up in the leaves and 
took a long nap, with no more qualms of con- 
