tle mother was just then occupied, and, never having learned to
count up to nine, she, apparently, never realized her loss; but she
was destined to avenge it, a week or two later, by eating two
new-hatched ducklings of that same black duck's brood. Another of the
little muskrats encountered fate on the threshold of his existence,
being snatched by the hungry jaws of a large pickerel, which darted
upon him like lightning from under the covert of a lily-pad. But in
this case, vengeance was instant and direct. The big muskrat chanced
to be near by. He caught the pickerel, while the latter was
preoccupied with his meal, bit clean through the back of his neck, and
then and there devoured nearly half of him. In the engrossing task of
cleaning his fur after this feast, and making his toilet, which he did
with minute nicety on a stranded log by the shore, he promptly forgot
the loss to his little family, the wrong which he had so
satisfactorily and appropriately avenged. As for the remaining seven,
they proceeded to grow up as rapidly as possible, and soon ceased to
stand in any danger of pickerel or mallard.

Though fairly omnivorous in his tastes, the big muskrat, like all his
tribe, was so content with his lilies, flag-root, and clams, that he
was not generally regarded as a foe by the birds and other small
people of the wilderness. He was too well fed to be a keen hunter.

Having learned (and taught his fellows) to avoid muskrat-traps, the
big muskrat enjoyed his lazy summer life on Bitter Creek with a
care-free spirit that is permitted to few, indeed, of the furtive
kindred of the wild. There was no mink, as we have seen, to beware of;
and as for hawks, he ignored them as none of the other small wild
creatures--squirrels, hares, or even the fierce and fearless
weasel--could afford to do. The hawks knew certain inconvenient
capacities of his kind. When, therefore, that sudden alarm would ring
clamorous over the still, brown woods, that shrill outcry of the
crows, jays, and king-birds, which sends every weak thing trembling to
cover, the big muskrat would sit up, untroubled, on his log, and go on
munching his flag-root with as fine an unconcern as if he had been
a bear or a bull moose.

[Illustration: "WITH A SCREAM OF PAIN AND FEAR, THE BIRD DROPPED
HIM."]

But one day, one late, rose-amber afternoon, when the gnats were
dancing over the glassy creek, he was startled out of this confidence.
He was standing in shallow w