One morning after a light snow-storm, followed by sparkling sunshine, Gray Lady took the younger children out for a walk through Birdland and the lane. Not but what even the younger children knew the way! But often as they had trodden it, there were many things that they noticed for the first time: the wonderful shapes of the snow crystals, the snow flowers that blossomed on the old weed stalks, the snow filling that brought many hidden nests into view, and all the other wonders that are so often wrought in the winter night, while we sleep soundly. Tommy and Dave, who had walked on ahead, halted suddenly and picked up a handful of feathers from the snow and stood looking at them as Gray Lady came up. “A bad Hawk or a Crow or Owl or something big has been here,” said Dave, with a quaver in his voice, “and it’s killed a banty rooster that looks just like mine, that is, this bunch of feathers does; but then, Goldilocks has banties, too, so perhaps it is one of hers,” and he held the feathers up. Gray Lady took them; yes, they were banty feathers, and from a bird that had not been long dead, for the quill ends were still moist. Then she looked at the ground: “Something that did not fly has killed the bantam, and dragged its body along the ground, and it had feet with padded claws, look!” she said, and there was a blood-stained trail that skirted the bushes and then ran across the lane toward a hay-barn that now held only bedding and cornstalks. “You children amuse yourselves here while Tommy, Dave, and I follow this up.” Nothing could have been more simple than this following, as the footprints of the large cat, for that is what it was, showed plainly in the new snow, and, here and there, a few drops of blood also marked the way. Straight to the barn ran the trail, and then through a small door that had been left open at Gray Lady’s request, that birds might take shelter inside. So they had, poor things, and so had the cat also. On the floor were other feathers of many kinds, among which Gray Lady recognized the white-spotted tail-feathers of a Robin, the pointed shafts of the Flicker, and gray-and-white down that might have come from a Junco’s breast; while half hidden by loose cornstalks was the foot of a Grouse, also yellow legs that had belonged to a good-sized chicken. The boys stood still in amazement, and Dave said, “I knew foxes and dogs carried things home or buried them, but I didn’t know cats did unless they have kittens hidden. I wonder if there are kittens in the cornstalks, and if this cat stole all the chickens we’ve been losing every day almost along since fall? Because it couldn’t be any kind of birds that stole them, they couldn’t get in; and father said it lay between cats, rats, and weasels.”