UNDER THE APPLE-TREES 
nose four or five inches. As he turned back along 
his roadway he would rapidly paw the earth behind 
him, and then, before entering his hole, would take 
a quick look all around. He was never for a moment 
off guard; the sense of danger was ever present with 
him. As he entered his hole, a succession of quick 
jets of earth, forming little parabolas in the air, 
would shoot up behind him. Then all would be still 
for from three to four minutes, when he would again 
emerge, shoving the soil before him and continuing 
to butt it, quickly glancing right and left the while, 
till he shot it upon his dump. 
This was his invariable procedure. Every motion 
was repeated like clockwork, the forward shoving, 
the retreating pawing, and the flying spray of earth 
as he disappeared in his hole. 
I fancied him there underground loosening the 
soil with his paws, for two or three minutes, then 
either kicking it up toward the exit or else shoving 
it in front of him. When at work he was intensely 
preoccupied; only one other feeling seemed to pos- 
sess him — that of impending danger. One day 
while he was mining beneath the surface, I sprinkled 
some corn and pumpkin-seeds along his highway 
and in the mouth of his hole, but when he came to 
the surface with his burden of soil he heeded them 
not; he shoveled or pawed them along with his soil, 
and buried them beneath it. The incident reminded 
me of the hound I once intercepted, hot on the trail 
31 
