rifle, and taking careful aim, fired. The chattering ceased; the
chipmunk disappeared.

Bennington ran to the log. Behind it lay the little animal. The long
steel-jacketed bullet had just grazed the base of its brain. He picked
it up gently in the palm of his hand and contemplated it.

It was such a diminutive beast, not as large as a good-sized rat, quite
smaller than our own fence-corner chipmunks of the East. It's little
sides were daintily striped, its little whiskers were as perfect as
those of the great squirrels in the timber bottom. In its pouches were
the roots of pine cones. Bennington was not a sentimentalist, but the
incident, against the background of the light-hearted day, seemed to
him just a little pathetic. Something of the feeling showed in his
eyes.

The girl, who had drawn near, looked from him to the dead chipmunk, and
back again. Then she burst suddenly into tears.

"Oh, cruel, cruel!" she sobbed. "What did I do it for? What did you
_let_ me do it for?"

Her distress was so keen that the young man hastened to relieve it.

"There," he reassured her lightly, "don't do that! Why, you are a great
hunter. You got your game. And it was a splendid shot. We'll have him
skinned when we get back home, and we'll cure the skin, and you can
make something out of it--a spectacle case," he suggested at random. "I
know how you feel," he went on, to give her time to recover, "but all
hunters feel that way occasionally. See, I'll put him just here until