made it very handy for A-bal-ka. He could gather the nuts which
fell upon the stone fence, and when he went for corn, he could keep to
the fence and thus avoid his enemies. Early in the fall he began to fill
his storehouse. To and fro he went along the fence with his
cheek-pouches full of corn and nuts.

Little Luke often amused himself by watching him. He would pick up the
nuts with his paws and put them into his cheek-pouches, and it was
amazing how many they would hold. When he started for home, his cheeks
sometimes looked as if he had a very severe case of the mumps.

One day in the autumn little Luke found out a queer thing about
A-bal-ka. He was going up the trail with Old John. A-bal-ka started to
cross the trail, but seeing the old Indian he became scared and ran up a
tree. This was a thing which he seldom did; never unless he was obliged
to, to escape from his enemies. He is a ground squirrel, and no tree
climber, like his cousins the Red and the Gray Squirrels.

"Now," said Old John, "I'll show you something." So he got a stout stick
and began to tap the tree. Tap, tap, tap, tap, as if he were beating
time to music. This tapping had a strange effect upon A-bal-ka. At first
he was greatly excited and tried to run farther up the tree. Soon he
gave this up, turned around, and began to come down head foremost. He
would lift his little feet and shake them as if something hurt them.
Lower and lower he came, until the old Indian could easily have killed
him with his club or caught him with his hand. He did neither. He just
laughed and threw away his stick.

"There," said he, "that's the way to make a chipmunk come down out of a
tree. They'll always do it, if you tap long enough,"

"That's queer," said the little boy; "what makes them come down? Why
don't they run farther up?"

"I don't know," said Old John, "perhaps they think you are trying to cut
down the tree, or maybe the jar hurts their feet. The Red Men used to
think that there was some kind of a magic charm about it."

"I am glad you didn't hurt him," said the little boy, as they went on up
the trail.

"Hurt him!" exclaimed the old Indian, "why, don't you know that no
Indian ever hurts a chipmunk?"

"Why is that?" asked the little boy.

"It's an old, old story," said Old John, "but come, let us sit down on
this log, and I'll tell it to you."

So when they were both comfortably seated, the old Indian began the tale
which you will find in the next c