told him that just in
front of his hungry nose a grouse was hidden, all unconscious of danger.
I found the spot, trailing the fox, a few hours later. How cautious he
was! The sly trail was eloquent with hunger and anticipation. A few feet
away from the promising hole he had stopped, looking keenly over the
snow to find some suspicious roundness on the smooth surface. Ah! there
it was, just by the edge of a juniper thicket. He crouched down, stole
forward, pushing a deep trail with his body, settled himself firmly and
sprang. And there, just beside the hole his paws had made in the snow,
was another hole where the grouse had burst out, scattering snow all
over his enemy, who had miscalculated by a foot, and thundered away to
the safety and shelter of the pines.

There was another enemy, who ought to have known better, following the
old beech partridge all one early spring when snow was deep and food
scarce. One day, in crossing the partridge's southern range, I met
a small boy,--a keen little fellow, with the instincts of a fox for
hunting. He had always something interesting afoot,--minks, or muskrats,
or a skunk, or a big owl,--so I hailed him with joy.

"Hello, Johnnie! what you after to-day--bears?"

But he only shook his head--a bit sheepishly, I thought--and talked of
all things except the one that he was thinking about; and presently he
vanished down the old road. One of his jacket pockets bulged more than
the other, and I knew there was a trap in it.

Late that afternoon I crossed his trail and, having nothing more
interesting to do, followed it. It led straight to the bullbrier thicket
where the old beech partridge roosted. I had searched for it many
times in vain before the fox led me to it; but Johnnie, in some of his
prowlings, had found tracks and a feather or two under a cedar branch,
and knew just what it meant. His trap was there, in the very spot where,
the night before, the old beech partridge had stood when he jumped for
the lowest limb. Corn was scattered liberally about, and a bluejay that
had followed Johnnie was already fast in the trap, caught at the base of
his bill just under the eyes. He had sprung the trap in pecking at some
corn that was fastened cunningly to the pan by fine wire.

When I took the jay carefully from the trap he played possum, lying limp
in my hand till my grip relaxed, when he flew to a branch over my
head, squalling and upbraiding me for having anything to do with such