Toward dusk the reddish ants, which may be termed quarriers, gave up
work, and this was the signal for the workers below to return home. The
quarriers came down the stump pushing the laborers, rather rudely as I
thought, out of their way; and then forming in what might be called
"light skirmishing order," they marched to the lower entrance of the
town, meeting as they went the column of workers going up to the stump.
They met it of course at once, and a minute of great helter-skelter
followed, this column falling back on itself as if assailed, in great
confusion. If this be the ordinary day's routine, why does that column
fall into confusion, and why, after throwing it into disorder, do the
reddish ants close their ranks and march into the town in compact
order, parallel with the working column going the other way, and which
they seemed to terrorize? Is it possible that the smaller ants are only
slaves of the larger? Inscrutable are the ways of ants! However, when
the advancing column had recovered from its confusion it formed up,
and, wheeling round in most regular order, fell behind the rear-guard
of the working column, and before dark not an ant remained outside
except a dead body.

Soon after the last of its living comrades had disappeared, six ants,
with a red one (dare I say?) "in command," came out and seemed to hold
a somewhat fussy consultation round the corpse which had fallen on the
line of march to the stump. After a minute or two, three of them got
hold of it, and with the other four as spectators or mourners, they
dragged it for about six feet and concealed it under a leaf, after
which they returned home; all this was most fascinating. A little later
Captain Murray destroyed both entrances to the town, but before
daylight, by dint of extraordinary labor, they were reconstructed lower
down the slope, and the work at the stump was going on as if nothing so
unprecedented had happened.