The mouse dragged away the velvety body of the butterfly to her hole under the roots.  She was no more than just in time, for no sooner was she out of sight than along came a fierce-eyed little shrew-mouse, the most audacious and pugnacious of the mouse tribe, who would undoubtedly have robbed her of her prey, and perhaps made a meal of her at the same time.  He nosed at the wings of the butterfly, nibbled at them, decided they were no good, and then came ambling over to the Child’s feet.  Shoe-leather!  That was something quite new to him.  He nibbled at it, didn’t seem to think much of it, crept along up to the top of the shoe, sniffed at the sock, and came at last plump upon the Child’s bare leg.  “Was he going to try a nibble at that, too?” wondered the Child anxiously, his blue eyes getting very big and round.  But no.  This live, human flesh—­unmistakably alive—­and the startling Man smell of it, were too much for the nerves of his shrewship.  With a squeak of indignation and alarm he sprang backward and scurried off among the weed-stalks.

“There, now!” thought the Child, in intense vexation.  “He’s gone and given the alarm!” But, as good luck would have it, he had done nothing of the kind.  For a red fox, trotting past just then at a distance of not more than ten or a dozen feet, served to all observers as a more than ample explanation of the shrew’s abrupt departure.  The fox turned his head at the sound of the scurry and squeak, and very naturally attributed it to his own appearance on the scene.  But at the same time he caught sight of those two motionless human shapes sitting rigid behind the poplar sapling.  They were so near that his nerves received a shock.  He jumped about ten feet; and then, recovering himself with immense self-possession, he sat up on his haunches to investigate.  Of course, he was quite familiar with human beings and their ways, and he knew that they never kept still in that unnatural fashion unless they were either asleep or dead.  After a searching scrutiny—­head sagely to one side and mouth engagingly half open—­he decided that they might be either dead or asleep, whichever they chose, for all he cared.  He rose to his feet and trotted off with great deliberation, leaving on the still air a faint, half-musky odor which the Child’s nostrils were keen enough to detect.  As he went a bluejay which had been sitting on the top of a near-by tree caught sight of him, darted down, and flew along after him, uttering harsh screeches of warning to the rest of the small folk of the wilderness.  It is not pleasant even in the wilderness to have “Stop thief!  Stop thief!  Thief!  Thief!  Thief!” screeched after you by a bluejay.  And the fox glanced up at the noisy bird as if he would have been ready to give two fat geese and a whole litter of rabbits for the pleasure of crunching her impudent neck.