e compass of their
thoughts. Follow, follow, follow! So spake the good old savagery
of the natural man. Better for this creature had it never
disturbed these two with its footfalls approaching among the
leaves. Out of its refuge now must it come. Yea, though one lost
a thousand suppers that night, and though a thousand stones lay
waiting in the dark along the road to hurt bare, unprotected
toes.

The sun forgot its part, and sank red, though reluctant, beyond
the Delectable Mountains. Thou moon, this is Ajalon! Be kindly,
for by moonlight one still may labor, and here is labor to be
done. Every blade in the Barlow knives is broken. The hole in
the stump yields not to slashings, nor to attempts to pry it
open. The prey is still unreached. What is to be done?

The elder hunter bethinks him of a solution for this problem.
The broken blade will do to gnaw off this bough, and it will
serve to make a split in the end of it. And if one be fortunate,
and if this split bestride the tail of the concealed animal, and
if the stick be twisted--

"I've got him!" cried this philosopher for his "Eureka." And
then there was twisting and pulling, and scratching and
squeaking, and bitten fingers and tears; but after all was over,
there lay the squirrel vanquished, at the feet of these young
barbarians who had wandered out from home into the unknown lands
of earth. Cruel barbarians, thoughtless, relentless! But how
much has the world changed?

[Illustration]

The moon was over Ajalon when these two hunters, after all the
perils of the long, black road, marched up into the dooryard,
bearing on a pole between them their quarry, well suspended
by the gambrels. "My boys, I feared that you were lost!"
exclaims the tearful mother who stands waiting in the door.
But the silent father, standing back of her in the glow of the
lamplight, sees what the pole is bearing, and in his eye there
is a smile. After that, motherly reproach, fatherly inquiry,
plenteous bread and milk, many eager explanations and much
descriptive narrative simultaneously uttered by two mouths eager
both to eat and to talk.

"I see it all," I said to the Singing Mouse. "It all comes back
again. No chase was ever or will ever be so great as this
one--back there, near the Delectable Mountains, in those days
gone by, those incomparable days of youth! I thank you, Singing
Mouse; but I beg you do not go for yet a time. The heads upon
the wall grin much, and the dust lie