thought longingly of the hard winter, when
game was scarce, and he had made his way out over the snow to the
settlement, and lived among the chicken coops. "Twenty big hens in one
roost--that was killing," snarled Kagax savagely, as he strangled two
young herons in their nest, while the mother bird went on with her
frogging, not ten yards away among the lily pads, and never heard a
rustle.

Toward morning he turned homeward, making his way back in a circle
along the top of the ridge where his den was, and killing as he went.
He had tasted too much; his feet grew heavier than they had ever been
before. He thought angrily that he would have to sleep another whole
day. And to sleep a whole day, while the wilderness was just beginning
to swarm with life, filled Kagax with snarling rage.

A mother hare darted away from her form as the weasel's wicked eyes
looked in upon her. Kagax killed the little ones and had started after
the mother, when a shiver passed over him and he turned back to
listen. He had been moving more slowly of late; several times he had
looked behind him with the feeling that he was followed. He stole back
to the hare's form and lay hidden, watching his back track. He
shivered again. "If it were not stronger than I, it would not follow
my trail," thought Kagax. The fear of a hunted thing came upon him. He
remembered the marten's den, the strangled young ones, the two trails
that left the leaning tree. "They must have turned back long ago,"
thought Kagax, and darted away. His back was cold now, cold as ice.

But his feet grew very heavy ere he reached his den. A faint light
began to show over the mountain across the lake. Killooleet, the
white-throated sparrow, saw it, and his clear morning song tinkled
out of the dark underbrush. Kagax's eyes glowed red again; he stole
toward the sound for a last kill. Young sparrows' brains are a dainty
dish; he would eat his fill, since he must sleep all day. He found the
nest; he had placed his fore paws against the tree that held it, when
he dropped suddenly; the shivers began to course all over him. Just
below, from a stub in a dark thicket, a deep _Whooo-hoo-hoo!_ rolled
out over the startled woods.

It was Kookooskoos, the great horned owl, who generally hunts only in
the evening twilight, but who, with growing young ones to feed,
sometimes uses the morning twilight as well. Kagax lay still as a
stone. Over him the sparrows, knowing the danger, crouched low in