he quiet pool, and he played about and fed,
occasionally with other muskrats who had their homes in the same stream.
They are sociable folk, as a rule, and like to live in colonies. The big
muskrat, however, kept much to himself, leading his own life,
independent of the colony.

The drowsy summer days passed and with a swirl of snowflakes the Frost
King descended upon the world. The muskrat's playground was roofed over
with ice, blue as steel, and the wilderness lay under a glistening white
mantle. For the fat old muskrat, however, the winter held no terrors. He
slept for long hours, curled up snug and warm in his soft, dry bed,
while the wind howled and the snow drifted but a foot above his head.
Many of the wilderness creatures began to feel the pinch of hunger but
not the big rat. Just outside the subterranean entrance to his abode
grew plenty of sweet-flag and succulent lily stems and roots, his for
the taking.

The whole pool was his playground, the season which brought distress to
so many creatures proving a blessing to him. The snapping turtle had
burrowed into the ground for the winter; the hawk had vanished; and
minks, those deadly enemies of the dwellers of the pool, were seldom
seen. The muskrat had nothing to fear. The water under the thick ice was
comfortably warm and, as it fell below its summer level, it left an air
space of several inches along the bank. There the muskrat could travel
long distances or seat himself comfortably and look out upon the wintry
world from which he was so well protected.

It was indeed a changed world upon which he looked one wintry morning.
The depths of the pool were as calm as a summer day, but above the ice
the bare branches of the birch trees were lashed by a cutting wind
straight from the ice fields of the north. Snow covered the forest
floor. Now and then a rabbit, looking like an animated snowball in its
white winter coat, drifted past the muskrat's hiding-place, but most of
the wilderness folk had denned up, waiting for the storm to pass.

The muskrat now bestirred himself and began a leisurely journey
downstream, stopping when an unusually succulent root showed itself
above the oozy bed. He had traveled far, lured by tempting food always
just ahead. Suddenly his heart seemed to stand still and he gazed down
stream with bulging eyes. Coming swiftly toward him, swimming with a
sinuous ease which struck terror to the muskrat's heart, was a long,
brown animal whose ke