t insatiable gunner came on them there it
was easy to run low among the hemlock to the great pine, then rise with
a derisive _whirr_ behind its bulk, and keeping the huge trunk in line
with the deadly gun, skim off in safety. A dozen times at least the pine
had saved them during the lawful murder season, and here it was that
Cuddy, knowing their feeding habits, laid a new trap. Under the bank he
sneaked and watched in ambush while an accomplice went around the Sugar
Loaf to drive the birds. He came trampling through the low thicket where
Redruff and Graytail were feeding, and long before the gunner was
dangerously near Redruff gave a low warning '_rrr-rrr_' (danger) and
walked quickly toward the great pine in case they had to rise.

Graytail was some distance up the hill, and suddenly caught sight of a
new foe close at hand, the yellow cur, coming right on. Redruff, much
farther off, could not see him for the bushes, and Graytail became
greatly alarmed.

'_Kwit, kwit_' (Fly, fly), she cried, running down the hill for a start.
'_Kreet, k-r-r-r_' (This way, hide), cried the cooler Redruff, for he
saw that now the man with the gun was getting in range. He gained the
great trunk, and behind it, as he paused a moment to call earnestly to
Graytail, 'This way, this way,' he heard a slight noise under the bank
before him that betrayed the ambush, then there was a terrified cry from
Graytail as the dog sprang at her, she rose in air and skimmed behind
the shielding trunk, away from the gunner in the open, right into the
power of the miserable wretch under the bank.

_Whirr_, and up she went, a beautiful, sentient, noble being.

_Bang_, and down she fell--battered and bleeding, to gasp her life out
and to lie a rumpled mass of carrion in the snow.

It was a perilous place for Redruff. There was no chance for a safe
rise, so he squatted low. The dog came within ten feet of him, and the
stranger, coming across to Cuddy, passed at five feet, but he never
moved till a chance came to slip behind the great trunk away from both.
Then he safely rose and flew to the lonely glen by Taylor's Hill.

One by one the deadly cruel gun had stricken his near ones down, till
now, once more, he was alone. The Snow Moon slowly passed with many a
narrow escape, and Redruff, now known to be the only survivor of his
kind, was relentlessly pursued, and grew wilder every day.

It seemed, at length, a waste of time to follow him with a gun, so when