Page:The Way of the Wild (1923).pdf/106

 lings were troubling them, but imagine my disgust to find the Red Rogue sitting on the edge of the nest, deliberately cracking the skulls of the young robins and then dropping the dead fledglings to the ground.

I was angry enough to have had him shot, but I could not bring myself to do that. I had watched him too long, and he had too strong a hold on my affections, so I merely frightened him away and when he was once more in the house I caught him and put him in the cage, where he should have been kept from the first. Such rogues as he should always be behind bars.

He scolded and barked and was very indignant. To his mind we had played a mean trick on him. He had been good as red squirrels go, and we had locked him up like a common criminal.

After this, whenever I looked at him, or whenever I heard him barking or scolding, I plotted to get rid of him. My opportunity came sooner than I had anticipated. A day or two after the Rogue's last offense, I discovered