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Meeko's patience soon gave out, or else he grew hungry, for he ate two or three of his scanty supply of peanuts, scolding and threatening to himself. But he left the rest carefully where they were. Two or three times that day I saw him sneaking about, keeping a sharp eye on the linden; but the little thief was watching too, and kept out of the way.
He followed like a bloodhound to the top of the second spruce, sniffed here and there till he caught the scent of Meeko's passage through the air, ran to the end of a branch in the same direction and leaped to the ground, landing not ten feet from the spot where the squirrel had struck a moment before.
So Clote Scarpe, to save the little woods-people, made Meeko smaller small as he is now. Unfortunately, Clote Scarpe forgot Meeko's disposition; that remained as big and as bad as before. So now Meeko goes about the woods with a small body and a big temper, barking, scolding, quarreling and, since he cannot destroy in his rage as before, setting other animals by the ears to destroy each other.
There he crouched into the smallest possible space and watched, with an awful fear in his eyes, the rough trunk below. Far behind him came Kagax, grim, relentless, silent as death. He paid no attention to scratching claws nor swaying branches, never looking for the jerking red tip of Meeko's tail, nor listening for the loud thump of his feet when he struck the ground.
When you have listened to Meeko's scolding for a season, and have seen him going from nest to nest after innocent fledgelings; or creeping into the den of his big cousin, the beautiful gray squirrel, to kill the young; or driving away his little cousin, the chipmunk, to steal his hoarded nuts; or watching every fight that goes on in the woods, jeering and chuckling above it, then you begin to understand the Indian legend.
Instantly the old hiding instinct would come back; he would start away, taking as much of his store as he could carry with him. The moment he was gone, out would come a squirrel sometimes two or three from their concealment and carry off all the peanuts that remained. Meeko's wrath when he returned was most comical. The Indian legend is true as gospel to squirrel nature.
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