Page:Seton-Thompson--Wild animals I Have Known.djvu/209

 in the middle of the open glade. The saucy low-minded squirrel came and scolded as usual. But she moved no hair. He came nearer and at last right over head to chatter:

"You brute you, you brute you."

But Vix lay as dead. This was very perplexing, so the squirrel came down the trunk and peeping about made a nervous dash across the grass, to another tree, again to scold from a safe perch.

"You brute you, you useless brute, scarrr-scarrrr."

But flat and lifeless on the grass lay Vix. Ths was most tantilizing to the squirrel. He was naturally curious and disposed to be venturesome, so again he came to the ground and scurried across the glade nearer than before. Still as death lay Vix, "surely she was dead." And the little foxes began to wonder if their mother wasn't asleep.

But the squirrel was working himself into a little craze of foolhardy curiosity. He had dropped a piece of bark on Vix's head, he had used up his list of bad words and he had done it all over again, without getting a sign of life.