elf sleepily, feeling the grateful warmth of her eggs and
listening to the wonderful song overhead, when the blow came. Before
she knew what it was, the sharp teeth had met in her brain. The
pretty nest would never again wait for a brooding mother in the
twilight.

All the while the wonderful song went on; for the hermit thrush,
pouring his soul out, far above on the dead spruce top, heard not a
sound of the tragedy below.

Kagax flung the warm body aside savagely, bit through the ends of the
three eggs, wishing they were young thrushes, and leaped to the
ground. There he just tasted the brain of his victim to whet his
appetite, listened a moment, crouching among the dead leaves, to the
melody overhead, wishing it were darker, so that the hermit would come
down and he could end his wicked work. Then he glided away to the
young hares.

There were five of them in the form, hidden among the coarse brakes of
a little opening. Kagax went straight to the spot. A weasel never
forgets. He killed them all, one after another, slowly, deliberately,
by a single bite through the spine, tasting only the blood of the last
one. Then he wriggled down among the warm bodies and waited, his nose
to the path by which Mother Hare had gone away. He knew well she would
soon be coming back.

Presently he heard her, _put-a-put_, _put-a-put_, hopping along the
path, with a waving line of ferns to show just where she was. Kagax
wriggled lower among his helpless victims; his eyes blazed red again,
so red that Mother Hare saw them and stopped short. Then Kagax sat up
straight among the dead babies and screeched in her face.

The poor creature never moved a step; she only crouched low before her
own door and began to shiver violently. Kagax ran up to her; raised
himself on his hind legs so as to place his fore paws on her neck;
chose his favorite spot behind the ears, and bit. The hare
straightened out, the quivering ceased. A tiny drop of blood followed
the sharp teeth on either side. Kagax licked it greedily and hurried
away, afraid to spoil his hunt by drinking.

But he had scarcely entered the woods, running heedlessly, when the
moss by a great stone stirred with a swift motion. There was a squeak
of fright as Kagax jumped forward like lightning--but too late.
Tookhees, the timid little wood mouse, who was digging under the moss
for twin-flower roots to feed his little ones, had heard the enemy
coming, and dove headlong into his hole, jus