RED SLAYER AND THE TERROR 245 
which he worked. One of his devices was to 
follow the line of a fence which ran along the 
road, passing one post on the north, the next on 
the south, the next on the north, and so on with 
the regularity of a shuttle in a loom. Along this 
fence were many weed and grass stalks sticking 
up above the snow, for the mowers never get quite 
up to a fence line, and the mice came here to feed 
on the seeds. By passing the successive posts on 
alternate sides, Red Slayer was first screened 
from the view of one side, then of the other, and 
seldom enough did he go the quarter mile length 
of that fence without making a sudden spring and 
landing his teeth into the throat of a mouse. If 
he was merely hunting for the fun of it, he left 
the mouse where it lay, scarcely drinking its 
blood. If he were a bit hungry, he ate the brains. 
If he were still more hungry, he peeled back the 
skin and ate the flesh. But sometimes he carried 
the mouse away, caching it in his wall, against a 
lean spell. When the snow was very deep and 
the hunting poor, he thus stocked his larder when 
game came his way. 
This particular winter, after he had come to 
