illooleet-lillooleet-lillooleet!_ And when I put crumbs by the
old fireplace, he flew down to help himself, and went off with the
biggest one, as of yore, to his nest by the deer path.

III. KAGAX THE BLOODTHIRSTY.

[Illustration: Kagax]

This is the story of one day, the last one, in the life of Kagax the
Weasel, who turns white in winter, and yellow in spring, and brown in
summer, the better to hide his villainy.

It was early twilight when Kagax came out of his den in the rocks,
under the old pine that lightning had blasted. Day and night were
meeting swiftly but warily, as they always meet in the woods. The life
of the sunshine came stealing nestwards and denwards in the peace of a
long day and a full stomach; the night life began to stir in its
coverts, eager, hungry, whining. Deep in the wild raspberry thickets a
wood thrush rang his vesper bell softly; from the mountain top a night
hawk screamed back an answer, and came booming down to earth, where
the insects were rising in myriads. Near the thrush a striped chipmunk
sat chunk-a-chunking his sleepy curiosity at a burned log which a bear
had just torn open for red ants; while down on the lake shore a
cautious _plash-plash_ told where a cow moose had come out of the
alders with her calf to sup on the yellow lily roots and sip the
freshest water. Everywhere life was stirring; everywhere cries, calls,
squeaks, chirps, rustlings, which only the wood-dweller knows how to
interpret, broke in upon the twilight stillness.

Kagax grinned and showed all his wicked little teeth as the many
voices went up from lake and stream and forest. "Mine, all mine--to
kill," he snarled, and his eyes began to glow deep red. Then he
stretched one sinewy paw after another, rolled over, climbed a tree,
and jumped down from a swaying twig to get the sleep all out of him.

Kagax had slept too much, and was mad with the world. The night
before, he had killed from sunset to sunrise, and much tasting of
blood had made him heavy. So he had slept all day long, only stirring
once to kill a partridge that had drummed near his den and waked him
out of sleep. But he was too heavy to hunt then, so he crept back
again, leaving the bird untasted under the end of his own drumming
log. Now Kagax was eager to make up for lost time; for all time is
lost to Kagax that is not spent in killing. That is why he runs night
and day, and barely tastes the blood of his victims, and sleeps only
an hour