When spring came, little prickly caterpillars crawled out from the eggs and began to eat the pine needles.  They had good appetites, but they never seemed to do the trees any serious harm, because they were hotly pursued by birds.  It was seldom that more than a few hundred caterpillars escaped the pursuers.

The poor things that lived to be full grown crawled up on the branches, spun white webs around themselves, and sat for a couple of weeks as motionless pupae.  During this period, as a rule, more than half of them were abducted.  If a hundred nun moths came forth in August, winged and perfect, it was reckoned a good year for them.

This sort of uncertain and obscure existence did the moths lead for many years in Liberty Forest.  There were no insect folk in the whole country that were so scarce, and they would have remained quite harmless and powerless had they not, most unexpectedly, received a helper.

This fact has some connection with Grayskin’s flight from the game-keeper’s paddock.  Grayskin roamed the forest that he might become more familiar with the place.  Late in the afternoon he happened to squeeze through some thickets behind a clearing where the soil was muddy and slimy, and in the centre of it was a murky pool.  This open space was encircled by tall pines almost bare from age and miasmic air.  Grayskin was displeased with the place and would have left it at once had he not caught sight of some bright green calla leaves which grew near the pool.

As he bent his head toward the calla stalks, he happened to disturb a big black snake, which lay sleeping under them.  Grayskin had heard Karr speak of the poisonous adders that were to be found in the forest.  So, when the snake raised its head, shot out its tongue and hissed at him, he thought he had encountered an awfully dangerous reptile.  He was terrified and, raising his foot, he struck so hard with his hoof that he crushed the snake’s head.  Then, away he ran in hot haste!

As soon as Grayskin had gone, another snake, just as long and as black as the first, came up from the pool.  It crawled over to the dead one, and licked the poor, crushed-in head.

“Can it be true that you are dead, old Harmless?” hissed the snake.  “We two have lived together so many years; we two have been so happy with each other, and have fared so well here in the swamp, that we have lived to be older than all the other water-snakes in the forest!  This is the worst sorrow that could have befallen me!”

The snake was so broken-hearted that his long body writhed as if it had been wounded.  Even the frogs, who lived in constant fear of him, were sorry for him.

“What a wicked creature he must be to murder a poor water-snake that cannot defend itself!” hissed the snake.  “He certainly deserves a severe punishment.  As sure as my name is Helpless and I’m the oldest water-snake in the whole forest, I’ll be avenged!  I shall not rest until that elk lies as dead on the ground as my poor old snake-wife.”