One fine moonlight night, as Nimble was frisking about on the bough of a
birch-tree, not very far from his house in the hemlock, he saw a canoe land
on the shore of the lake, and some Indians with an axe cut down some
bushes, and having cleared a small piece of ground, begin to sharpen, the
ends of some long poles. These they stuck into the ground close together in
a circle; and having stripped some sheets of birch-bark from the
birch-trees close by, they thatched the sides of the hut, and made a fire
of sticks inside. They had a dead deer in the canoe, and there were several
hares and black squirrels, the sight of which rather alarmed Nimble; for he
thought if they killed one sort of squirrel, they might another, and he was
very much scared at one of the Indians firing off a gun close by him. The
noise made him fall down to the ground, and it was a good thing that it was
dark among the leaves and grass where the trunk of the tree threw its long
shadow, so that the Indian did not see him, or perhaps he might have loaded
the gun again, and shot our little friend, and made soup of him for his
supper.

Nimble ran swiftly up a pine-tree, and was soon out of danger. While he
was watching some of the Indian children at play, he saw a girl come out
of the hut with a grey squirrel in her arms; it did not seem at all afraid
of her, but nestled to her shoulder, and even ate out of her hand; and
what was Nimble's surprise to see that this tame grey squirrel was none
other than his own pretty sister Silver-nose, whom he had left in the
hollow tree when they both ran away from the red squirrel.

You may suppose the sight of his lost companion was a joyful one; he
waited for a long, long time, till the fire went out, and all the Indians
were fast asleep, and little Silvy came out to play in the moonlight, and
frisk about on the dewy grass as she used to do. Then Nimble, when he saw
her, ran down the tree, and came to her and rubbed his nose against her,