Page:They who walk in the wilds, (IA theywhowalkinwil00robe).pdf/26

 one, and Mishi settled down again to wach hopefully for more.

A few minutes later a red squirrel, one of the most quick-witted and inquisitive of all the creatures of the wild, peering down through the branches, thought that he detected something strange in the shadowy, motionless figure far below. Nearer and nearer he crept, circling noiselessly down the trunk, his big bright eyes ablaze with curiosity, till he was within a couple of yards of Mishi's tail. Then, and not till then, did he catch the glint of Mishi's narrowed eyes fixed upon him, and realize that the shadowy shape was something alive, a new and terrible monster. With a chattering shriek of wrath and fear, he raced up the trunk again, and dancing as if on wires in his excitement, began to shrill out his warning to all the forest dwellers.

In two seconds Mishi was up the tree, gaining the lower branches in one tremendous spring, and scrambling onward like a cat, with a loud rattling of claws. But already the squirrel was several trees away, leaping from bough to bough and shrieking the alarm as he fled. It was taken up by every other squirrel within hearing, and by a couple of impudent blue jays who came fluttering over Mishi's head with screams of insult and defiance. Promptly realizing that there could be no more secrecy for him in this neighbourhood, Mishi