came out
of its den a few feet away, and ran quickly to a pile of chestnut posts
about twenty yards from where I sat. Nig saw it, and was off my lap upon
the floor in an instant. I spoke sharply to the cat, when she sat down
and folded her paws under her, and regarded the squirrel, as I thought,
with only a dreamy kind of interest. I fancied she thought it a hopeless
case there amid that pile of posts. "That is not your game, Nig," I
said, "so spare yourself any anxiety." Just then I was called to the
house, where I was detained about five minutes. As I returned I met Nig
coming to the house with the chipmunk in her mouth. She had the air of
one who had won a wager. She carried the chipmunk by the throat, and its
body hung limp from her mouth. I quickly took the squirrel from her, and
reproved her sharply. It lay in my hand as if dead, though I saw no
marks of the cat's teeth upon it. Presently it gasped for its breath,
then again and again. I saw that the cat had simply choked it. Quickly
the film passed off its eyes, its heart began visibly to beat, and
slowly the breathing became regular. I carried it back, and laid it down
in the door of its den. In a moment it crawled or kicked itself in. In
the afternoon I placed a handful of corn there, to express my sympathy,
and as far as possible make amends for Nig's cruel treatment.

Not till four or five days had passed did my little neighbor emerge
again from its den, and then only for a moment. That terrible black
monster with the large green-yellow eyes,--it might be still lurking
near. How the black monster had captured the alert and restless squirrel
so quickly, under the circumstances, was a great mystery to me. Was not
its eye as sharp as the cat's, and its movements as quick? Yet cats do
have the secret of catching squirrels, and birds, and mice, but I have
never yet had the luck to see it done.

It was not very long before the chipmunk was going to and from her den
as usual, though the dread of the black monster seemed ever before her,
and gave speed and extra alertness to all her movements. In early summer
four young chipmunks emerged from the den, and ran freely about. There
was nothing to disturb them, for, alas! Nig herself was now dead.

One summer day I watched a cat for nearly a half hour trying her arts
upon a chipmunk that sat upon a pile of stone. Evidently her game was to
stalk him. She had cleared half the distance, or about twelve feet, that
separate