The children heard it, and suddenly caught sight of her, and then, oh, what a chase began!  The boy began to throw stones and pieces of wood, and actually dared to throw some of her own nuts at Siccatee.

By this time she was at the top of the tree, and now her grief changed to anger—­real anger—­and she sat on one of the boughs and scolded as hard as she could.  Her funny little “prit, prit, p-r-i-t,” amused the children, and the more she scolded the more they laughed.

At last Siccatee grew disgusted and left that tree to go to another, and then another, and still another; springing such distances and at such a height that the children thought she would be dashed to pieces every moment.  But not a bit of it.  Siccatee, like all squirrels, was very sure-footed, and rarely made a false step.  If, by any chance, she should loose her foothold, she would spread out her legs and funny, bushy tail, drop lightly to the ground and bound away as though nothing had happened.  But she took care not to lose her foothold now, with those Horrible Humans so near.  All she thought about was to get away from them as quickly as possible, and to lead them away from her other hiding-places.

Luckily they had found but one.  She had several others near the big tree—­for this was her home tree, and there she and her husband had lived for two or three years, and reared several families.

[Illustration:  “SAT ON ONE OF THE BOUGHS AND SCOLDED AS HARD AS SHE COULD.”]

But while all this was going on, Siccatee called to her husband, and in a very few minutes he joined her.  He was much bigger than Siccatee and not so nervous, and on hearing what had happened flew into a great rage, and dared and defied his enemies in the same way that his wife had done—­that is, by sitting on a bough and scolding them.

The children pelted the two squirrels with everything they could find, but they dodged so quickly and so cleverly that not a single thing touched them.

But after a time the children grew tired of throwing stones and sticks, and as it made their necks ache to look up so high, they gave up the chase and went home, and that was the last that Sentre and Siccatee saw of them for a long time.

But this unpleasant incident had upset them both very much, and when their children joined them a few minutes later, they gave them many warnings and cautions about always keeping a sharp lookout for danger.

At last all ventured down, and, while keeping a sharp lookout with their bright little eyes, gazed on the ruin the children had wrought.  Fortunately, it was not the most valuable of their hoards, for it contained no eggs or insects.

After much consultation and discussion, the squirrels decided not to use this hiding-place again—­at any rate, not that winter—­for it would never do to run the risk of having it disturbed a second time.

So they set to work, found a nice crevice in a big rock, and worked hard all day long collecting another store.