me much excited. They hammered the stub now without
making the Squirrel reappear.

"Let's cut it down," said Little Beaver.

"Show you a better trick than that," replied the Woodpecker. He looked
about and got a pole some twenty feet long. This he placed against a
rough place high up on the stub and gave it a violent push, watching
carefully the head of the stub. Yes! It swayed just a little. Sam
repeated the push, careful to keep time with the stub and push always
just as it began to swing away from him. The other boys took hold of
the pole and all pushed together, as Sam called, "Now--now--now--"

A single push of 300 or 400 pounds would scarcely have moved the stub,
but these little fifty-pound pushes at just the right time made it
give more and more, and after three or four minutes the roots, that
had begun to crack, gave way with a craunching sound, and down crashed
the great stub. Its hollow top struck across a fallen log and burst
open in a shower of dust, splinters and rotten wood. The boys rushed
to the spot to catch the Squirrel, if possible. It did not scramble
out as they expected it would, even when they turned over the
fragments. They found the front of the stub with the old Woodpecker
hole in it, and under that was a mass of finely shredded cedar bark,
evidently a nest. Yan eagerly turned it over, and there lay the Red
Squirrel, quite still and unharmed apparently, but at the end of her
nose was a single drop of blood. Close beside her were five little
Squirrels, evidently a very late brood, for they were naked, blind and
helpless. One of them had at its nose a drop of blood and it lay as
still as the mother. At first the hunters thought the old one was
playing 'Possum, but the stiffness of death soon set in.

Now the boys felt very guilty and sorry. By thoughtlessly giving way
to their hunting instincts they had killed a harmless mother Squirrel
in the act of protecting her young, and the surviving little ones had
no prospect but starvation.

Yan had been the most active in the chase, and now was far more
conscience-stricken than either of the others.

"What are we going to do with them?" asked the Woodpecker. "They are
too young to be raised for pets."

"Better drown them and be done with them," suggested Sappy, recalling
the last honours of several broods of Kittens at home.

"I wish we could find another Squirrel's nest to put them into,"
said Little Beaver remorsefully, and then as he looked