A distant barking note makes you start. There is a fox squirrel over yonder somewhere, beyond the ruins of the old arch. You strain your attention toward the sound. Billy sits bolt upright, with round eyes, questioning ears, and suspended breath. But just as you are thinking of getting up, a nut drops with a thump on the log beside you and bounds lightly into the leaves at your feet. You know what that means! You look up instantly and catch just a glimpse of a sweeping foxy tail as it vanishes along a big branch and around the thick stem of a tree. He goes up forty or fifty feet, and then, far out on the big oak branch, lies close to the bark, out of sight. Billy whines uneasily; he shivers with excitement. You say: "Sit still, Billy!" There is only the least bit of the foxy tail visible. You tread softly to one side and another, slowly circle the tree, and all the while the owner of the tail subtly shifts his position so that you always just fail to get a shot. Finally, you resort to stratagem; you pick up a nut and throw it with all your might to the other side of the tree. He hears it fall, and, suddenly suspicious, shifts to your side of the branch. But you are not quick enough; by the time you have raised the gun, he has become satisfied that you are the greater danger of the two, and has shifted back to safety. And now you resort to more elaborate stratagem. You say: "Sit down, Billy!" and Billy obeys, keeping his eye on you, and dropping his ears from time to time, as he catches your glance, in token of good-will. You circle the big tree again, and as you go the tail shifts constantly. Finally, when you are opposite Billy, you raise the gun with careful calculation. You call out quietly but sharply to your ally: "Speak, Billy, quick!" Billy is tense with excitement at sight of the raised gun. He speaks out sharply, at the same time giving a couple of little leaps. The squirrel shifts again to your side, suddenly. And now comes your opportunity! As he sits there a moment, his attention divided between you and the new alarm, the breech-loader belches its charge. A brownish-red body with waving tail comes headlong to the ground with a crash among the leaves, which rustle and crackle for a moment or two at your feet as you watch the blind kicks of the death struggle. You pick him up, with no very great eagerness, and go on your way--regretfully, for you are enjoying the life of the Woods, and are enough of a philosopher and sentimentalist to wonder what, after all, is your superior right to the enjoyment, and whether the contribution to the sum total of happiness in the universe through you is enough to compensate it for the loss through the squirrel. You ask Billy about it and get no help. He simply says that whatever you think best is bound to be all right, and leads the way toward the old arch. WILLIAM ELLERY LEONARD