altogether.

I was wondering how long his hunger would battle with his
caution, when I saw the moss near my bait stir from beneath. A
little waving of the moss blossoms, and Tookhees' nose and eyes
appeared out of the ground for an instant, sniffing in all
directions. His little scheme was evident enough now; he was
tunneling for the morsel that he dared not take openly. I watched
with breathless interest as a faint quiver nearer my bait showed
where he was pushing his works. Then the moss stirred cautiously
close beside his objective; a hole opened; the morsel tumbled in,
and Tookhees was gone with his prize.

I placed more crumbs from my pocket in the same place, and
presently three or four mice were nibbling them. One sat up close
by the dead brake, holding a bit of bread in his forepaws like a
squirrel. The brake stirred suddenly; before he could jump my
hand closed over him, and slipping the other hand beneath him I
held him up to my face to watch him between my fingers. He made
no movement to escape, but only trembled violently. His legs
seemed too weak to support his weight now; he lay down; his eyes
closed. One convulsive twitch and he was dead--dead of fright in
a hand which had not harmed him.

It was at this colony, whose members were all strangers to me,
that I learned in a peculiar way of the visiting habits of wood
mice, and at the same time another lesson that I shall not soon
forget. For several days I had been trying every legitimate way
in vain to catch a big trout, a monster of his kind, that lived
in an eddy behind a rock up at the inlet. Trout were scarce in