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.