Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/813

Rh worm or a grub ahead of him. Then he would drive forward almost with a pounce, clutch the prey, and devour it delightedly there in the dark.

Suddenly the earth broke away before him, and his investigating nose poked itself through into another gallery a shade larger than his own. This fact might well have made him draw back, but his was not the drawing-back disposition. His nose told him that the rival digger was a mole, and had but recently gone by. Without a second's hesitation he clawed through, and darted down the new tunnel, seeking either a fight or a feast, as fate might decree.

In his savage haste, however, the shrew was not discriminating; and all at once he realized that he had lost the fresh scent. This was still the mole's gallery, but there was no longer any sign that its owner had very lately traversed it. As a matter of fact, several yards back the shrew had blundered past the mouth of a branching tunnel, up which the mole, ignorant that he was being pursued, had leisurely taken its way. The pursuer stopped, hesitated for a moment, then decided to push ahead and see what might turn up. In half a minute a breath of the upper air met him, and he came out at one of the exits which the mole had used for dumping earth.

At this point the shrew seemed to decide that he had had enough of underground foraging. He stuck his head up through the opening and looked over the green turf. The opening was close to a pile of stones in the fence corner, which promised both shelter and good hunting. Having hastily dusted the loose earth from his face and whiskers, he emerged, ran to the stone heap, and whisked into the nearest crevice.

On a warm gray stone near the top of the pile, gently waving its wings in the sunshine, glowed a gorgeous red and black butterfly. The intensity of its coloring seemed to vibrate in the unclouded radiance. Suddenly from just beneath the stone on which it rested slipped forth the shrew, and darted at it with a swift, scrambling leap. The beautiful insect, however, was wide awake, and saw the danger in good time. One beat of its wide, gorgeous wings uplifted its light body as a breath softly uplifts a tuft of thistle-down. The baffled shrew jumped straight into the air, but in vain; and the great butterfly went flickering aimlesly over the pasture to find some less perilous basking-place.

Angered by this failure, the shrew descended the stone heap and scurried over to the fence, poking his nose under every tussock of weeds in search of the nest of some ground-bird. Along parallel with the fence he hunted, keeping out about a foot from the lowest rail. He found no nest; but suddenly the owners of a nest that was hidden somewhere in the neighborhood found him. He found himself buffeted by swift, elusive wings. Sharp little beaks jabbed him again and again; and the air seemed full of angry twittering. For a few moments he stood his ground obstinately, wrinkling back his long snout and jumping at his bewildering assailants. Then, realizing that he could do nothing against such nimble foes, he drew back and ran under the fence. He was not really hurt, and not at all terrified; but he was beaten, and therefore in a very bad temper.

Since his return to the green upper world ill luck had persistently followed his ventures, and now his thoughts turned back to the burrows under the grass roots. He remembered also that mole which had so inexplicably evaded him. Keeping close to the fence, he hurried back to the stone heap, on the other side of which lay the entrance to the burrows. He was just about to make a hurried and final investigation of the pile, when his nose caught a strong scent which made him stop short and seem to shrink into his skin. At the same instant a slim, long, yellow-brown animal emerged from the stones, cast a quick, shifting glance this way and that, then darted at him as smoothly as a snake. With a frantic leap he shot through the air, alighting just beside the mouth of the burrow. The next instant he had vanished; and the weasel, arriving a second too late, thrust his fierce, triangular face into the hole, but made no attempt to squeeze himself down a passage so restricted.

The shrew had been terrified, indeed; but his dogged spirit was by no means cowed or given over to panic. He felt fairly confident that the weasel was too