hole in it, and under that was a mass of finely shredded cedar bark, evidently a nest.  Yan eagerly turned it over, and there lay the Red Squirrel, quite still and unharmed apparently, but at the end of her nose was a single drop of blood.  Close beside her were five little Squirrels, evidently a very late brood, for they were naked, blind and helpless.  One of them had at its nose a drop of blood and it lay as still as the mother.  At first the hunters thought the old one was playing ’Possum, but the stiffness of death soon set in.

Now the boys felt very guilty and sorry.  By thoughtlessly giving way to their hunting instincts they had killed a harmless mother Squirrel in the act of protecting her young, and the surviving little ones had no prospect but starvation.

Yan had been the most active in the chase, and now was far more conscience-stricken than either of the others.

“What are we going to do with them?” asked the Woodpecker.  “They are too young to be raised for pets.”

“Better drown them and be done with them,” suggested Sappy, recalling the last honours of several broods of Kittens at home.

“I wish we could find another Squirrel’s nest to put them into,” said Little Beaver remorsefully, and then as he looked at the four squirming, helpless things in his hand the tears of repentance filled his eyes.  “We might as well kill them and end their misery.  We can’t find another Squirrel’s nest so late as this.”  But after a little silence he added, “I know some one who will put them out of pain.  She may as well have them.  She’d get them anyway, and that’s the old gray wild Cat.  Let’s put them in her nest when she’s away.”

This seemed a reasonable, simple and merciful way of getting rid of the orphans.  So the boys made for the “canon” part of the brook.  At one time of the afternoon the sun shone so as to show plainly all that was in the hole.  The boys went very quietly to Yan’s lookout bank, and seeing that only the Kittens were there, Yan crept across and dropped the young Squirrels into the nest, then went back to his friends to watch, like Miriam, the fate of the foundlings.

They had a full hour to wait for the old Cat, and as they were very still all that time they were rewarded with a sight of many pretty wild things.

A Humming-bird “boomed” into view and hung in a misty globe of wings before one Jewel-flower after another.

“Say, Beaver, you said Humming-birds was something or other awful beautiful,” said Woodpecker, pointing to the dull grayish-green bird before them.

“And I say so yet.  Look at that,” as, with a turn in the air, the hanging Hummer changed its jet-black throat to flame and scarlet that silenced the critic.

After the Humming-bird went away a Field-mouse was seen for a moment dodging about in the grass, and shortly afterward a Shrew-mole, not so big as the Mouse, was seen in hot pursuit on its trail.