appeared lifeless. Then one little black spot, which had seemed like a
lump of mud against a dead grass-stalk, moved; then another, and
another, and another--all over the pool. Pale throats began to throb
rhythmically; and the pipings once more pulsed forth buoyant and
strong. The frogs had utterly forgotten the intruder, and their
bulging eyes were no longer fixed on the log. Nevertheless, as it
chanced, there was not a single piper within reach of the watcher's
paw.

The raccoon's eyes gleamed with intenser fire, but she never stirred.
She knew that the price of a meal, to most of the wood-folk, was
patience as untiring as a stone. Only her full, dark eyes, set in
their bar of black, moved watchfully, searching the pallid spaces all
about the log.

A moment more and her patience was rewarded. A big frog from the
neighbour pool, unaware that there had been any intrusion here, came
swimming up, on some errand of private urgency, and made directly for
the log. The next instant, before he had any inkling of the imminence
of doom, the raccoon's forepaw shot out like a flash. It was a
wide-spread, flexible paw, like a little, black, lean hand, strong and
delicate, the fingers tipped with formidable claws. It caught the
swimming frog under the belly, swept him from the water, and threw him
far up on to the shore. With a pounce, the raccoon was upon him; and
a snap of her strong teeth ended his struggles.

The raccoon was very hungry, but, unlike others of the hunting tribes,
she did not fall instantly to her meal. The mauled victim was covered
with bits of dried stubble and leaf and earth, which clung to its
sticky skin and were most distasteful to her fastidious appetite.
Picking it up in her jaws, she carried it back to the pool. There,
holding it in her claws, she proceeded to wash it thoroughly, sousing
it up and down till there was not a vestige of soilure to be found
upon it. When quite satisfied that no washing could make it cleaner,
she fell to and made her meal with relish.

But what was one frog to a raccoon with a family, a mother whose
breast must supply five hungry little mouths? She ran over to the
brook, and followed down its bank to a spot where it widened out and a
strong eddy made up against the hither shore, washing a slope of
gravel. Here, in the shallows, she heard a feeble flopping, and knew
that a sick or disabled fish was making its last fight with fate. It
was a large chub, which had evidently b