pell-mell, jabbering like a flock of blackbirds, along a linden
branch, through two maples, across a driveway, and up a big elm
where Little Thief whisked out of sight into a knot hole.

After him came Big Thief, swearing vengeance. But the knot hole
was too small; he couldn't get in. Twist and turn and push and
threaten as he would, he could not get in; and Little Thief sat
just inside jeering maliciously.

Meeko gave it up after a while and went off, nursing his wrath.
But ten feet from the tree a thought struck him. He rushed away
out of sight, making a great noise, then came back quietly and
hid under an eave where he could watch the knot hole.

Presently Little Thief came out, rubbed his eyes, and looked all
about. Through my glass I could see Meeko blinking and twitching
under the dark eave, trying to control his anger. Little Thief
ventured to a branch a few feet away from his refuge, and Big
Thief, unable to hold himself a moment longer, rushed out, firing
a volley of direful threats ahead of him. In a flash Little Thief
was back in his knot hole and the comedy began all over again.

I never saw how it ended; but for a day or two there was an
unusual amount of chasing and scolding going on outside my
windows.

It was this same big squirrel that first showed me a curious
trick of biding. Whenever he found a handful of nuts on my
windowsill and suspected that other squirrels were watching to
share the bounty, he had a way of hiding them all very rapidly.