to. In less than half an hour he whisked out again
in great excitement, jumped from branch to branch till he was many
yards from his own tree, and then burst forth into vehement chatter.
He must have dreamed that some one was rifling his hoards, for he ran
eagerly from one hiding-place to another and examined them all
suspiciously. As he had at least two-score to inspect, it took him
some time; but not till he had looked at every one did he seem
satisfied. Then he grew very angry, and scolded and chirruped, as if
he thought some one had made a fool of him. That he had made a fool
of himself probably never entered his confident and self-sufficient
little head.

While indulging this noisy volubility he was seated on the top of his
dining-stump. Suddenly he caught sight of something that smote him
into silence and for the space of a second turned him to stone. A few
paces away was a weasel, gliding toward him like a streak of baleful
light. For one second only he crouched. Then his faculties returned,
and launching himself through the air he landed on the trunk of the
maple and darted up among the branches.

No less swiftly the weasel followed, hungry, bloodthirsty, relentless
on the trail. Terrified into folly by the suddenness and deadliness of
this peril, the squirrel ran too far up the tree and was almost
cornered. Where the branches were small there was no chance to swing
to another tree. Perceiving this mistake, he gave a squeak of terror,
then bounded madly right over his enemy's head, and was lucky enough
to catch foothold far out on a lower branch. Recovering himself in an
instant, he shot into the next tree, and thence to the next and the
next. Then, breathless from panic rather than from exhaustion, he
crouched trembling behind a branch and waited.

The weasel pursued more slowly, but inexorably as doom itself. He was
not so clever at branch-jumping as his intended prey, but he was not
to be shaken off. In less than a minute he was following the scent up
the tree wherein the squirrel was hiding; and again the squirrel
dashed off in his desperate flight. Twice more was this repeated, the
squirrel each time more panic-stricken and with less power in nerve or
muscle. Then wisdom forsook his brain utterly. He fled straight to his
elm and darted into his nest in the swaying top. The weasel, running
lithely up the ragged trunk, knew that the chase was at an end. From
this cul de sac the squirrel had no escape.