Page:Wild folk - Samuel Scoville.djvu/125

Rh muscles tensed by the fear of death. Like a flash, Chippy traversed the main passage of his burrow, dashed into a tunnel that forked off to the right, and then dived into a smaller branch, which angled off sharply from the larger tube. Then he suddenly doubled on his tracks, and popped into another passage, which ran in a long slant up to within a few inches of the surface of the hillside.

Once beyond the entrance to this last tunnel, the chipmunk dug for his very life's sake. With flashing strokes of his forepaws, he dislodged the soft earth at the sides of the passage, sweeping it back with his hind feet; and, even as the weasel writhed his way along the main passage, Chippy had sealed the doorway to the last tube which he had entered, so carefully that the blocked entrance could not be told from the rest of the surface of the passage-wall. Then he hurried swiftly and silently toward the surface.

Even as he dug his way up through the tough grass-roots, his fierce pursuer flashed into the tube from which the walled-up doorway led. With nose close to the ground, the weasel had followed the chipmunk's trail at full speed, nor had the branching and intersecting passages slowed his speed even for a moment. Only when he came to the spot where the chipmunk had doubled back to the sealed-up doorway, was he checked. Even his keen nostrils could not follow the trail through four inches of fresh earth.

As he came to a standstill, his microphonic ears caught the sound of distant digging far above him. Instantly, without wasting any time in hunting for