Bannertail Author:Ernest Thompson Seton Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE RED HORROR CHAPTER III THE RED HORROR (N the Hunting-moon it came, just when the corn begins to turn, and in the dawn, when Bannertail Graycoat was yi... more »elding to the thrill that comes with action, youth and life, in dew-time. There was a growing, murmuring sound, then smoke from the barn, like that he had seen coming from the red mystery in the cook-house. But this grew very fast and huge; men came running, horses frantically plunging hurried out, and other living things and doings that he did not understand. Then when the sun was high a blackened smoking pile there waswhere once had stood the dear old barn; and a new strange feeling over all. The old Cat disappeared. A few days more and the house-folk, too, were gone. The place was deserted, himself a wildwood roving Squirrel, quite alone, without a trace of Squirrel training, such as example of the old ones gives, unequipped, unaccompanied, unprepared for the life- fight, except that he had a perfect body, and in his soul enthroned, the many deep and dominating instincts of his race. chapter{Section 4THE NEW AND LONELY LIFE CHAPTER IV THE NEW AND LONELY LIFE 'HE break was made complete by the Red Horror, and the going of the man- people. Fences and buildings are good for some things, but the tall timber of the distant wooded hill was calling to him and though he came back many a time to the garden while there yet was fruit, and to the field while the corn was standing, he was ever more in the timber and less in the open. Food there was in abundance now, for it was early autumn; and who was to be his guide in this: "What to eat, what to let alone?" These two guides he had, and they proved enough: instinct, the wisdom inherited from his forebears, and his keen, discriminating nose. Scrambling up a rotten st...« less