_had_ been big enough-- Well, you see, she hadn't any more
conscience than just enough to get along with comfortably.

"One fine day, soon after her adventure with the black snake, her
search for a home of her own brought her out into the warm sunshine of
a little, deserted clearing. It was an old lumber camp, all grown up
with tall grass and flowering weeds. The weeds and grass crowded up
around the very threshold of the old gray log cabin.

"The Little Sly One stopped short, blinking in the strong light and
sniffing cautiously. There was no smell of danger--none whatever, but
a scent came to her nose that she thought was quite the nicest scent in
the world.

"Where did it come from? Oh, there is was--that bunch of dull-green
weeds! Forgetting prudence, forgetting everything, she ran forward and
began rolling herself over and over in ecstasy in the bed of
strong-smelling weeds."

"Catnip!" suggested the Babe.

"Of course!" agreed Uncle Andy impatiently. "What else _could_ it be?

"The Little Sly One had never heard tell of catnip, but she knew right
off it was something good for every kind of cat. When she had had
_quite_ enough of it, she felt kind of light and silly, and not afraid
of anything. So, as bold as you please, she marched right up to the
cabin.

"The door was shut. She climbed upon the roof. There was an old bark
chimney, with a great hole rotted in its base. She looked in.

"It was pleasantly shadowy inside, with a musty smell and no sign of
danger. She dropped upon a narrow shelf. From the shelf, sniffing and
glancing this way and that, she sprang to a kind of wider shelf close
under the eaves.

"That was a bunk, of course, where one of the lumbermen used to sleep,
though _she_ didn't know _that_. It was full of old dry hay, very
warmy and cozy. And the hay, as the Little Sly One observed at once,
was full of mice.

"She pounced on one at once and ate it. Decidedly, this was the place
for her. She curled herself up in the warm hay and went to sleep
without fear of any enemies coming to disturb her."

"But what would she do when the lumbermen came back?" demanded the Babe
anxiously.

"By _that_ time," answered Uncle Andy, putting away his pipe and rising
to go, "she would no longer be the _Little_ Sly One! She'd be big
enough to take care of herself--and run away as soon as she heard them
coming."

CHAPTER XIV

THE DARING OF STRIPES TERROR-TAIL

"What would y