and over the sight to where Tookhees sat eating his crumb. My
finger was pressing the trigger--"O you big butcher," said
Conscience, "think how little he is, and what a big roar your gun
will make! Aren't you ashamed?"

"But I want the trout," I protested.

"Catch him then, without killing this little harmless thing,"
said Conscience sternly.

"But he is a stranger to me; I never--"

"He is eating your bread and salt," said Conscience. That settled
it; but even as I looked at him over the gun sight, Tookhees
finished his crumb, came to my foot, ran along my leg into my
lap, and looked into my face expectantly. The grizzled coat and
the split ear showed the welcome guest at my table for a week
past. He was visiting the stranger colony, as wood mice are fond
of doing, and persuading them by his example that they might
trust me, as he did. More ashamed than if I had been caught
potting quail, I threw away the hateful shell that had almost
slain my friend. and went back to camp.

There I made a mouse of a bit of muskrat fur, with a piece of my
leather shoestring sewed on for a tail. It served the purpose
perfectly, for within the hour I was gloating over the size and
beauty of the big trout as he stretched his length on the rock
beside me. But I lost the fraud at the next cast, leaving it,
with a foot of my leader, in the mouth of a second trout that
rolled up at it the instant it touched his eddy behind the rock.