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 the forest to come and try to rob him of his prize.

Having eaten his fill, Mustela dragged the remnants of the carcass under a thick bush, defiled it so as to make it distasteful to other eaters of flesh, and scratched a lot of dead leaves and twigs over it till it was effectually hidden. As game was abundant at this season, and as he always preferred a fresh kill, he was not likely to want any more of that victim; but he hated the thought of any rival profiting from his prowess.

Mustela now turned his steps homeward, traveling more lazily, but with eyes, nose, and ears ever on the alert for fresh quarry. Though his appetite was sated for some hours, he was as eager as ever for the hunt, for the fierce joy of killing and taste of the hot blood. But the Unseen Powers of the Wilderness, ironic and impartial, decided just then that it was time for Mustela to he hunted in his turn.

If there was one creature above all others who could strike the fear of death into Mustela's merciless soul it was his great cousin, the ferocious and implacable fisher. Of twice his weight and thrice his strength, and his full petr in swiftness and cunning, the fisher was Mustela's nightmare, from whom there was no escape except in the depth of some hole too narrow for the fisher's