All the while the wonderful song went on; for the hermit thrush, pouring his soul out, far above on the dead spruce top, heard not a sound of the tragedy below.

Kagax flung the warm body aside savagely, bit through the ends of the three eggs, wishing they were young thrushes, and leaped to the ground.  There he just tasted the brain of his victim to whet his appetite, listened a moment, crouching among the dead leaves, to the melody overhead, wishing it were darker, so that the hermit would come down and he could end his wicked work.  Then he glided away to the young hares.

There were five of them in the form, hidden among the coarse brakes of a little opening.  Kagax went straight to the spot.  A weasel never forgets.  He killed them all, one after another, slowly, deliberately, by a single bite through the spine, tasting only the blood of the last one.  Then he wriggled down among the warm bodies and waited, his nose to the path by which Mother Hare had gone away.  He knew well she would soon be coming back.

Presently he heard her, put-a-put, put-a-put, hopping along the path, with a waving line of ferns to show just where she was.  Kagax wriggled lower among his helpless victims; his eyes blazed red again, so red that Mother Hare saw them and stopped short.  Then Kagax sat up straight among the dead babies and screeched in her face.

The poor creature never moved a step; she only crouched low before her own door and began to shiver violently.  Kagax ran up to her; raised himself on his hind legs so as to place his fore paws on her neck; chose his favorite spot behind the ears, and bit.  The hare straightened out, the quivering ceased.  A tiny drop of blood followed the sharp teeth on either side.  Kagax licked it greedily and hurried away, afraid to spoil his hunt by drinking.

But he had scarcely entered the woods, running heedlessly, when the moss by a great stone stirred with a swift motion.  There was a squeak of fright as Kagax jumped forward like lightning—­but too late.  Tookhees, the timid little wood mouse, who was digging under the moss for twin-flower roots to feed his little ones, had heard the enemy coming, and dove headlong into his hole, just in time to escape the snap of Kagax’s teeth.

That angered the fiery little weasel like poking a stick at him.  To be caught napping, or to be heard running through the woods, is more than he can possibly stand.  His eyes fairly snapped as he began digging furiously.  Below, he could hear a chorus of faint squeaks, the clamor of young wood mice for their supper.  But a few inches down, and the hole doubled under a round stone, then vanished between two roots close together.  Try as he would, Kagax could only wear his claws out, without making any progress.  He tried to force his shoulders through; for a weasel thinks he can go anywhere.  But the hole was too small.  Kagax cried out in rage and took up the trail.  A dozen times he ran it from the hole to the torn moss, where Tookhees had been digging roots, and back again; then, sure that all the wood mice were inside, he tried to tear his way between the obstinate roots.  As well try to claw down the tree itself.