ber
brought home to his little ones a Shrew."

"What's that?"

"Oh, a little thing like a Mouse, only it isn't a Mouse at all; it is
second cousin to a Mole."

"I allus thought a Mole _was_ a Mouse specie," remarked Hawkeye,
not satisfied with Yan's distinction.

"Oh, you!" interrupted Sam. "You'll try to make out the Burnses is
some kin to the Raftens next."

"I bet I won't!" and for once Guy got even.

"Well," Yan continued, "it so happened--about the first time in about
a million years--the little Hawks were not hungry just then. The Shrew
wasn't gobbled up at once, and though wounded, it set to work to
escape as soon as it was free of the old one's claws. First it hid
under the little ones, then it began to burrow down through the
feather-bed of the Sparrow-hawk's nest, then through the Blue Jay's
nest, then through the soft stuff of the Blackbird's nest and among
the old truck left by the Chickadees till it struck the hard mud
floor of the Blackbird's nest, and through that it could not dig. Its
strength gave out now, and it died there and lay hidden in the lowest
nest of the house, till years after I came by and broke open the old
stub and made it tell me a sad and mournful story--that--maybe--never
happened at all. But there's the drawing I made of it at the place,
showing all the nests just as I found them, and there's the dried up
body of the little Shrew."

Sam listened with intense interest, but Guy was at no pains to conceal
his contempt. "Oh, pshaw! That's no adventure--just a whole lot of
's'posens' without a blame thing doing. Now I'll tell you what I done.
I--"

"Now, Hawkeye," Sam put in, "please don't be rough about it. Leave out
the awful things: I ain't well to-day. You keep back the scary parts
till to-morrow."

"I tell you I left here and went straight as a die, an' I seen a
Woodchuck, but he wasn't in line, so I says: 'No, some other day. I
kin get you _easy_ any time.' Then I seen a Hawk going off with
a Chicken, but that was off my beat, an' I found lots o' old stumps
an' hundreds o' Chipmunks an' wouldn't be bothered with them. Then I
come to a farmhouse an'--an' I went around that so's not to scare the
Dog, an' I went pretty near as far as Downey's Dump--yes, a little
a-past it--only to one side--when up jumps a Partridge as big as a
Turkey, an' a hull gang of young ones--about thirty or forty. I bet I
seen them forty rod away, an' they all flew, but one that lighted on
a tree as