At last the warm, autumnal sunshine no longer shone down and warmed the bank with its rays. As it grew colder, many of those who lived in underground homes, the fur-coated burrowing tribes, began to make ready their winter quarters. The chipmunks had laid in their stores, the woodchucks, now sleek and very fat, had gone into their inner chambers and closed up their front and back doors snugly that they might sleep warm all winter. So there were really very few among the wild ones stirring abroad. Colder and bleaker grew the hillside, but thicker, softer and more elegant became the velvety coat of old Star Nose. He didn't care how cold it grew; in fact he worked all the harder, even beginning new subways deeper down in the ground, which ran far beneath, so the frost could not enter. Star Nose did not close up his doors as had the woodchuck family, for he loved to creep outside and gnaw among the roots and grasses. When the sun came out it warmed his thick fur coat very pleasantly. He took even longer journeys underground, digging frantically in new directions, and he never forgot the fright he had once when in digging he actually broke right through into the hut of Musquash, the muskrat, where it faced the water. It chanced to be vacant, and while he was busy exploring the hut, wondering what kind of cement Musquash used to harden its walls, he heard the slap of a muskrat's tail upon the water. Peering out he saw bubbles rising, then a brown pointed snout, and two indignant eyes looking right at him. Star Nose tried to back out down a passageway, but he was not quick enough, and even before he could turn about Musquash, with a squeak of rage, had him right beneath his claws. Sly old Star Nose thought his time had come then, but, strangely enough, he managed to wriggle his soft body free and had slipped quickly off down a long, narrow passage, too small for the muskrat to follow him. Star Nose realised he had had a narrow escape that time. But, I suspect, if the truth were known, Musquash did not happen to be very hungry, for he had just had a fine meal of lily roots; then, too, Star Nose is not reckoned so great a dainty, for he carries such a disagreeable scent of musk about him, even stronger than that of Musquash himself; 'tis said no wild thing will devour him unless very, very hungry.