interpret, broke in upon the twilight stillness.

Kagax grinned and showed all his wicked little teeth as the many
voices went up from lake and stream and forest. "Mine, all mine--to
kill," he snarled, and his eyes began to glow deep red. Then he
stretched one sinewy paw after another, rolled over, climbed a tree,
and jumped down from a swaying twig to get the sleep all out of him.

Kagax had slept too much, and was mad with the world. The night
before, he had killed from sunset to sunrise, and much tasting of
blood had made him heavy. So he had slept all day long, only stirring
once to kill a partridge that had drummed near his den and waked him
out of sleep. But he was too heavy to hunt then, so he crept back
again, leaving the bird untasted under the end of his own drumming
log. Now Kagax was eager to make up for lost time; for all time is
lost to Kagax that is not spent in killing. That is why he runs night
and day, and barely tastes the blood of his victims, and sleeps only
an hour or two of cat naps at a time--just long enough to gather
energy for more evil doing.

As he stretched himself again, a sudden barking and snickering came
from a giant spruce on the hill just above. Meeko, the red squirrel,
had discovered a new jay's nest, and was making a sensation over it,
as he does over everything that he has not happened to see before. Had
he known who was listening, he would have risked his neck in a
headlong rush for safety; for all the wild things fear Kagax as they
fear death. But no wild thing ever knows till too late that a weasel
is near.

Kagax listened a moment, a ferocious grin on his pointed face; then he