ound him
each time too hot to be held. Seeing that the creature was likely to
escape, I set my foot upon him again, and made a finish of him.

The weasel is the boldest and most bloodthirsty of our small mammals;
indeed, none of our larger beasts are more so. There is something
devilish and uncanny about it. It persists like fate; it eludes, but
cannot be eluded. The terror it inspires in the smaller creatures--rats,
rabbits, chipmunks--is pitiful to behold. A rat pursued by a weasel has
been known to rush into a room, uttering dismal cries, and seek the
protection of a man in bed. A chipmunk will climb to the top of a tall
tree to elude it, and then, when followed, let go its hold and drop
with a cry of despair toward the ground. A friend of mine, walking along
the road early one morning, saw a rat rush over the fence and cross a
few yards ahead of him. Pressing it close came a weasel, which seized
the rat before it could gain the opposite wall. My friend rushed to the
aid of the rat with his cane. But the weasel dodged his blows, and in a
moment or two turned fiercely upon him. My friend aimed more blows at it
without effect, when the weasel began leaping up before him, within a
few feet of his face, its eyes gleaming, its teeth threatening, and
dodging every blow aimed at it. The effect, my friend says, was
singularly uncanny and startling. It was like some infuriated imp of
Satan dancing before him, and watching for a chance to seize him by the
throat or to dash into his eyes. He slowly backed off, beating the air
with his cane. Then the weasel returned to the disabled rat and
attempted to drag it into the wall. My friend now began to hurl stones
at it, but it easily dodged them. Now he was joined by another
passer-by, and the two opened upon the weasel with stones, till finally,
in dodging one, it was caught by the other, and so much hurt that it
gave up the rat and sought shelter in the wall, where it was left
waiting to secure its game when its enemies should have gone on.

I must give one more instance of the boldness and ferocity of the
weasel. A woman in northern Vermont discovered that something was
killing her hens, often on the nest. She watched for the culprit, and at
last caught a weasel in the act. It had seized the hen, and refused to
let go when she tried to scare it away. Then the woman laid hold of it
and tried choking it, when the weasel released its hold upon the hen and
fastened its teeth into he