Kagax crept stealthily out of the thicket.  He had an awful fear now of his feet; for, heavy with the blood he had eaten, they would rustle the leaves, or scratch on the stones, that all night long they had glided over in silence.  He was near his den now.  He could see the old pine that lightning had blasted, towering against the sky over the dark spruces.

Again the deep Whooo-hoo-hoo! rolled over the hillside.  To Kagax, who gloats over his killing except when he is afraid, it became an awful accusation.  “Who has killed where he cannot eat? who strangled a brooding bird? who murdered his own kin?” came thundering through the woods.  Kagax darted for his den.  His hind feet struck a rotten twig that they should have cleared; it broke with a sharp snap.  In an instant a huge shadow swept down from the stub and hovered over the sound.  Two fierce yellow eyes looked in upon Kagax, crouching and trying to hide under a fir tip.

Kagax whirled when the eyes found him and two sets of strong curved claws dropped down from the shadow.  With a savage snarl he sprang up, and his teeth met; but no blood followed the bite, only a flutter of soft brown feathers.  Then one set of sharp claws gripped his head; another set met deep in his back.  Kagax was jerked swiftly into the air, and his evil doing was ended forever.

There was a faint rustle in the thicket as the shadow of Kookooskoos swept away to his nest.  The long lithe form of a pine marten glided straight to the fir tip, where Kagax had been a moment before.  His movements were quick, nervous, silent; his eyes showed like two drops of blood over his twitching nostrils.  He circled swiftly about the end of the lost trail.  His nose touched a brown feather, another, and he glided back to the fir tip.  A drop of blood was soaking slowly into a dead leaf.  The marten thrust his nose into it.  One long sniff, while his eyes blazed; then he raised his head, cried out once savagely, and glided away on the back track.

IV.  KOOKOOSKOOS, WHO CATCHES THE WRONG RAT.

[Illustration:  Kookooskoos]

Kookooskoos is the big brown owl, the Bubo Virginianus, or Great Horned Owl of the books.  But his Indian name is best.  Almost any night in autumn, if you leave the town and go out towards the big woods, you can hear him calling it, Koo-koo-skoos, koooo, kooo, down in the swamp.

Kookooskoos is always catching the wrong rat.  The reason is that he is a great hunter, and thinks that every furry thing which moves must be game; and so he is like the fool sportsman who shoots at a sound, or a motion in the bushes, before finding out what makes it.  Sometimes the rat turns out to be a skunk, or a weasel; sometimes your pet cat; and, once in a lifetime, it is your own fur cap, or even your head; and then you feel the weight and the edge of Kookooskoos’ claws.  But he never learns wisdom by mistakes; for, spite of his grave appearance, he is excitable as a Frenchman; and so, whenever anything stirs in the bushes and a bit of fur appears, he cries out to himself, A rat, Kookoo! a rabbit! and swoops on the instant.