After the scavenger birds had disappeared from sight, Peter climbed high up into the top of his tree, where he could look far across the swamp. He saw away off beyond the swamp, the plantations, stretching as far as the eye could reach, and criss-crossing them in all directions the deep irrigation ditches, where one might wander for miles, and become lost as in a city of many streets. Finally Peter went back into the nest again; there he slept all day, expecting to hear the welcome scratching of Mrs. Possum's claws upon the tree trunk any moment. But in vain; she did not come. Had she been caught by the hounds? At sunset Peter watched the buzzards come sailing back home for the night and settle themselves in their soiled feathers, looking just like two black bundles of rags clinging among the tufted pines. Then the whip-poor-wills away down close to the ground, hidden among the thorn tangles, began their lonely calls. And at last, unable to bear the loneliness a minute longer, Peter slid hastily down the tree into the shadows. Soon the moon, which was now big and yellow, came peeping through the dark pines, lighting up the dark places and finally, to his great joy, Peter actually stumbled upon the trail of his lost mate. Poor thing! She had not been able to travel very fast because she carried the eleven little possums in her pouch, so it was easy to follow her tracks, as her heavy body had left certain deep impressions in the soft moss. He discovered many places where she had stopped to rest--deep, round hollows; perhaps she had lain low to keep away from the hounds. Peter followed her trail patiently, and at last he came to the edge of the plantations crossed by the maze of ditches, almost as deep as two men are high. Then Peter's troubles and trials began at the first ditch. He found where his mate had entered a ditch, gone over it for a long distance, then turned off uncertainly into still another ditch, finally coming back again to the very place she had started from. Oh, it was a very easy matter indeed to lose one's way in the perplexing ditches, and so all the next day Peter travelled hopefully up and down them, searching everywhere for his lost family. There was not much to eat in the ditches, although, when very hard pressed by hunger, an opossum will eat anything. Opossums, you know, are really _night scavengers_. But you may be certain that the unpleasant old buzzards who float all day over the plantations, watching the ditches, had left little which a possum might care to eat. Next day Peter climbed out of the ditches and hid himself in a very thick holly tree, trusting that its prickly leaves would conceal him while he rested. When twilight came, again he took up his search in the ditches. Bravely poor Peter searched them night after night. Occasionally he came across a trap which some negro labourer had placed in the mouth of a ditch, hoping to catch a coon. But Peter managed to keep his feet out of them.