my private concerns that I didn’t like, and I was bound to find out who the interloper was, and if possible, to make his acquaintance.  There was no snow on the ground, and I couldn’t get at his track.  So I made up my mind to watch for him.  Well, one day I spoke to Crop to stay by the shanty and take care of the things, while I went to find out who it was that was medlin’ with our property, and started off on my line of traps.  I got up into the crotch of a great birch near one of ’em, and sat there with my rifle, waitin’ for something to turn up.  It was a little after noon when I got located.  The sun travelled slowly along down towards the western hills, his bright light, in that calm November day, makin’ the rocky ranges and the bare heads of the tall peaks shine out in a blaze of glory.  The livin’ things of the old woods were busy and jolly enough.  An old owl came flying lazily out of the thick branches of a hemlock, and lightin’ within a dozen feet of me, opened his great round eyes in astonishment, and as the bright sunlight dazzled him, he squinted and turned his cat-like face from side to side, as if makin’ up his mind that he’d know me the next time we met.  By-and-by he opened his hooked beak, and great red mouth, and roared out, ’Hoo! hohoo! hoo!’ as much as to say, ‘who the devil are you?’ I didn’t answer a word, and after a little, he flew back to his shadowy perch among the dense foliage of the hemlock.  A black squirrel came hopping along with his mouth full of beech nuts, and running nimbly up the tree on which I was perched, and out upon one of the great limbs, deposited his store in a hollow he found there.  He caught sight of me as he came back, and seating himself upon a branch, not six feet from my head, began chatterin’ and barkin’ as if givin’ me a regular lecter for invadin’ his premises, and takin’ possession of his tree.  He didn’t seem to understand the matter at all, and I didn’t undertake to explain the reason of my being there.  After a little, he went off about his business, and left me to attend to mine.  A raccoon came nosing along, stoppin’ every little way to turn over the leaves, or pull away the dirt from a root with his long hands, tastin’ of one thing and smellin’ of another in a mighty dainty way.  When he came to my tree, he seemed to think that there might be something among its branches worth looking at.  So he came clambering up its rough bark towards where I sat.  He came up on the other side of the tree from me, till he got about even with my huntin’-cap, and then came round to my side, and there we were, face to face, not two feet apart.  I reckon that coon was astonished when our eyes met, for with a sort of scream he let right loose, and dropped twenty feet to the ground like a clod, and the way he waddled away into the brash, mutterin’ and talkin’ to himself, was a thing to laugh at.