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 to sight among the leafage, but the relentless pursuer followed the trail by scent for several hundred yards. Then, because he knew it was the habit of the snowshoe tribe to circle back so as to regain the familiar feeding grounds and coverts, this craftiest of hunters left the trail and cut a chord to the circle, expecting to intercept his quarry's flight. Had he been dealing with an ordinary, average snowshoe, things would have fallen out something after this fashion. He would have shown himself suddenly right in the fugitive's path and jumped at him with a terrifying snarl. The fugitive, panic-stricken to find himself thus confronted by the foe whom he had thought left far behind, would have cowered down trembling in his tracks and yielded up his life with a scream of anguish.

But in this case the weasel found his calculations all astray. This quarry's flight was so unexpectedly swift that the pursuer reached the point of interception too late to lie in ambush. He arrived just as young Snowshoe came by with a wild rush. He sprang, of course, but from too great a distance for his spring to be effective. Snowshoe, catching sight of him just in time, was not panic-stricken, but, without swerving from his course, went clean over him in one tremendous bound, and at the same time, as luck