, and I
shall have to live in a strange place where I won't know where to look
for food. I am getting tired. My legs ache. I 'm getting hungry. I want
my nice, warm, soft bed. Oh, dear! Oh, dear! Oh, dear me!"

But in spite of his frights, Whitefoot kept on. You see, he was more
afraid to stop than he was to go on. He just had to get as far from
Shadow the Weasel as he could. Being such a little fellow, what would be
a short distance for you or me is a long distance for Whitefoot.

And so that journey was to him very long indeed. Of course, it seemed
longer because of the constant frights which came one right after
another. It really was a terrible journey. Yet if he had only known it,
there wasn't a thing along the whole way to be afraid of. You know it
often happens that people are frightened more by what they don't know
than by what they do know.

CHAPTER XVI: Whitefoot Climbs A Tree

I'd rather be frightened With no cause for fear
Than fearful of nothing When danger is near.
--Whitefoot.

Whitefoot kept on going and going. Every time he thought that he was so
tired he must stop, he would think of Shadow the Weasel and then go on
again. By and by he became so tired that not even the thought of Shadow
the Weasel could make him go much farther. So he began to look about for
a safe hiding-place in which to rest.

Now the home which he had left had been a snug little room beneath the
roots of a certain old stump. There he had lived for a long time in the
greatest comfort. Little tunnels led to his storehouses and up to the
surface of the snow. It had been a splendid place and one in which he
had felt perfectly safe until Shadow the Weasel had appeared. Had you
seen him playing about there, you would have thought him one of the
little people of the ground, like his cousin Danny Meadow Mouse.

But Whitefoot is quite as much at home in trees as on the ground. In
fact, he is quite as much at home in trees as is Chatterer the Red
Squirrel, and a lot more at home in trees than is Striped Chipmunk,
although Striped Chipmunk belongs to the Squirrel family. So now that
he must find a hiding-place, Whitefoot decided that he would feel much
safer in a tree than on the ground.

"If only I can find a hollow tree," whimpered Whitefoot. "I will feel
ever so much safer in a tree than hiding in or near the ground in a
strange place."

So Whitefoot began to look for a dead tree. You see, he knew that there
wa