ne, chasing his own tail. As he was
amusing himself with this foolish play, another mouse, about the same
size as himself, and probably of the same litter, jumped upon the
stone, and knocked him off. He promptly retorted in kind; and for
several minutes, as if the game were a well-understood one, the two
kept it up, squeaking soft merriment, and apparently forgetful of all
peril. The grass-tops above this play rocked and rustled in a way that
would certainly have attracted attention had there been any eyes to
see. But the marsh-hawk was still hunting lazily at the other side of
the field, and no tragedy followed the childishness.

Both seemed to tire of the sport at the same instant; for suddenly
they stopped, and hurried away through the grass on opposite sides of
the stone, as if remembered business had just called to them. Whatever
the business was, the first mouse seemed to forget it very speedily,
for in half a minute he was back upon the stone again, combing his
fine whiskers and scratching his ears. This done to his satisfaction,
he dropped like a flash from his seat, and disappeared into a small
hollow beneath it. As he did so, a hairy black spider darted out, and
ran away among the roots.

A minute or two after the disappearance of the mouse, a creature came
along which appeared gigantic in the diminutive world of the grass
folk. It was nearly three feet long, and of the thickness of a man's
finger. Of a steely gray black, striped and reticulated in a
mysterious pattern with a clear whitish yellow, it was an ominous
shape indeed, as it glided smoothly and swiftly, in graceful curves,
through the close green tangle. The cool shadows and thin lights
touched it flickeringly as it went, and never a grass-top stirred to
mark its sinister approach. Without a sound of warning it came
straight up to the stone, and darted its narrow, cruel head into the
hole.

There was a sharp squeak, and instantly the narrow head came out
again, ejected by the force of the mouse's agonized spring. But the
snake's teeth were fastened in the little animal's neck. The doom of
the green world had come upon him while he slept.

But doomed though he was, the mouse was game. He knew there was no
poison in those fangs that gripped him, and he struggled desperately
to break free. His powerful hind legs kicked the ground with a force
which the snake, hampered at first by the fact of its length being
partly trailed out through the tangle, w