More often he marks the spot and goes away silently. When
he is hungry he will carry off Deedeeaskh's corn before touching
his own.
Once I saw the tables turned in a most interesting fashion.
Deedeeaskh is as big a thief in his way as is Meeko, and also as
vile a nest-robber. The red squirrel had found a hoard of
chestnuts--small fruit, but sweet and good--and was hiding it
away. Part of it he stored in a hollow under the stub of a broken
branch, twenty feet from the ground, so near the source of supply
that no one would ever think of looking for it there. I was
hidden away in a thicket when I discovered him at his work quite
by accident. He seldom came twice to the same spot, but went off
to his other storehouses in succession. After an unusually long
absence, when I was expecting him every moment, a blue jay came
stealing into the tree, spying and sneaking about, as if a nest
of fresh thrush's eggs were somewhere near. He smelled a mouse
evidently, for after a moment's spying he hid himself away in the
tree top, close up against the trunk. Presently Meeko came back,
with his face bulging as if he had toothache, uncovered his
store, emptied in the half dozen chestnuts from his cheek pockets
and covered them all up again.
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