sore
and bleeding stump. This outburst perhaps relieved his feelings a
little; for apparently the red squirrel needs to give his emotions vent
more than any other member of the wild kindreds. But he had learned a
lesson. He would not again try swimming in a water which pickerel
inhabited. Then, a little later, he learned another. A fish-hawk passed
overhead. The fish-hawk would not have harmed him under any
circumstances. But the squirrel thought of other hawks, less
gentle-mannered; and he realized that the loud volubility which in the
security of his native trees he might indulge would never do out here on
his shelterless log. He stopped his complaints, crouched flat, and
scanned the sky anxiously for sign of other hawks. He had suddenly
realized that he was now naked to the eyes of all his enemies.

Presently a new terror came to sap his courage. A little way ahead the
banks were high and the channel narrow; and the river, no longer able to
relieve the freshet strain by spreading itself over wide meadows, became
a roaring rapid. The squirrel heard that terrifying roar. He noted how
swiftly it was approaching. In a half-panic he stared about, almost
ready to dare the pickerel and make a try for shore, rather than be
carried through those rapids.

In this extremity of terror he saw what, at other times, would have
frightened him almost as much as hawk or pickerel. A rowboat slowly drew
near, picking its way through the logs. The one rower, a grizzled old
river-man, was surging vigorously, to avoid being swept down into the
thunderous narrows. But as he approached, he noticed the trembling
squirrel on the log. In a flash he took in the situation. With a
sheepish grin, as if ashamed of himself for troubling about a "blame
squirrel," he thrust out the tip of an oar toward the log, with a sort
of shy invitation.

The squirrel, fortunately for himself, was one of those animals which
are sometimes open to a new idea. He did not trust the man, to be sure.
But he trusted him more than he did the rapids ahead, and feared him
less than he feared the pickerel. Promptly he skipped aboard the boat,
and perched himself on the bow, as far away as possible from his
rescuer. The man wasted no time on sentimentalizing, but pulled as hard
as he could for shore. When near the bank, however, and out of the
stress of the current, he permitted himself what he considered a piece
of foolishness. He turned the boat about, and backed in till