He slept well, but not long; for the red squirrel has always something on his mind to see to. In less than half an hour he whisked out again in great excitement, jumped from branch to branch till he was many yards from his own tree, and then burst forth into vehement chatter. He must have dreamed that some one was rifling his hoards, for he ran eagerly from one hiding-place to another and examined them all suspiciously. As he had at least two-score to inspect, it took him some time; but not till he had looked at every one did he seem satisfied. Then he grew very angry, and scolded and chirruped, as if he thought some one had made a fool of him. That he had made a fool of himself probably never entered his confident and self-sufficient little head.
While indulging this noisy volubility he was seated on the top of his dining-stump. Suddenly he caught sight of something that smote him into silence and for the space of a second turned him to stone. A few paces away was a weasel, gliding toward him like a streak of baleful light. For one second only he crouched. Then his faculties returned, and launching himself through the air he landed on the trunk of the maple and darted up among the branches.
No less swiftly the weasel followed, hungry, bloodthirsty, relentless on the trail. Terrified into folly by the suddenness and deadliness of this peril, the squirrel ran too far up the tree and was almost cornered. Where the branches were small there was no chance to swing to another tree. Perceiving this mistake, he gave a squeak of terror, then bounded madly right over his enemy's head, and was lucky enough to catch foothold far out on a lower branch. Recovering himself in an instant, he shot into the next tree, and thence to the next and the next. Then, breathless from panic rather than from exhaustion, he crouched trembling behind a branch and waited.
The weasel pursued more slowly, but inexorably as doom itself. He was not so clever at branch-jumping as his intended prey, but he was not to be shaken off. In less than a minute he was following the scent up the tree wherein the squirrel was hiding; and again the squirrel dashed off in his desperate flight. Twice more was this repeated, the squirrel each time more panic-stricken and with less power in nerve or muscle. Then wisdom forsook his brain utterly. He fled straight to his elm and darted into his nest in the swaying top. The weasel, running lithely up the ragged trunk, knew that the chase was at an end. From this cul de sac the squirrel had no escape.