utumn,--the time when Nature tells the badgers that
they must provide themselves with a winter retreat,--and Badgy could no
more have kept from burrowing than he could have resisted eating a frog.
So when the dark came on, he went to work, close to the door of the
cave, burrowing with might and main, his long nose loosening the dirt
for his fore feet to remove. He worked so fast that it was only a few
minutes before his claws came though his stockings. Then he redoubled
his efforts, and dug on, and on, and on.

Early in the morning, after having burrowed down for a time, then along
a level, and, finally, on an upward slant, as instinct directed him to
do, he came through the crust of the earth. He climbed out of his burrow
and sat upon his haunches at its mouth to rest a moment. As he did so,
he heard a sound above him and looked up to see what had caused it. Over
his head were several perches on which sat a number of sleepy fowls. He
was in the chicken-house!

He grunted in surprise, and at the sound one of the chickens uttered a
long, low, warning note that awakened the others. As they moved on their
perches, Badgy eyed them, twisting his head from side to side. The loose
dirt clinging to his snout and breast fell off with his heavy breathing,
and his stockings hung ragged and soiled about his front legs.

Suddenly there was another and a louder cry of danger from a chicken,
following a slight noise near the door of the coop. Badgy looked that
way to see what was coming, and through a hole in the sod wall made out
the evil face of a mink, peering in. It came closer, and there were more
cries from the chickens overhead, for they had recognized the approach
of their mortal enemy. In a moment his long, shining body had come
through the hole, and he had paused, crouching, to reconnoiter before
making a spring.

Badgy watched him, his nose curling angrily, his claws working back and
forth. Then, as the mink crept stealthily forward, measuring the
distance to a pullet on a lower perch, the badger ambled toward him,
snarling furiously, his teeth snapping and his eyes glowing red with
hatred.

The fight was a fierce one, and the cries of the two animals as they
twisted and bit aroused the whole barn-yard. The chickens set up a
bedlam of noise, flying about from perch to perch and knocking one
another off in their fright. But Badgy and the mink fought on, writhing
in each other's hold, the mink striving to get a death-gri