“There must be squirrels in that tree,” said Lew.

Now muffled squeaks of fear or pain were audible.  The two boys looked at each other questioningly.

“There are squirrels up there all right,” agreed Charley, “and something’s wrong.  That’s exactly the way a squirrel sounds when it’s in trouble.  Yes; there are some squirrels in the tree top.  They’re terribly excited over something.”

The boys began to examine the tree.  It was an old oak.  Well up its trunk a limb had broken or rotted away, and the resulting decay of the stub had made a hole in the tree itself.  What instantly riveted the attention of the two boys was something black and tapering that projected from the hole and that slowly waved in the air.

“A blacksnake!” cried Charley.  “He’s probably eaten the little squirrels.”

In a second Charley was shinning up the tree.  Not far below the squirrel hole the stub of another old limb projected.  Charley pulled himself up and got a footing on it.  He drew his little axe from his hip, and, yanking the snake half-way out of the hole, broke its back with a sharp blow of the axe, and then threw the reptile to the ground.  Lew was on it like a flash with his feet, tramping it to death.  In the snake’s mouth was a small squirrel still kicking and making muffled noises.

Charley slid to the ground, drew his knife and slit the snake’s head, releasing the young squirrel.  It was hurt and terribly frightened, but was apparently not really injured.  Charley kept it in his hand, feeling for broken bones.

“I don’t believe this squirrel is really harmed a bit,” he said finally, “but it was a pretty close call.  I’m going to put it back in the nest again.”

He put the little creature in his pocket, then again shinned up the tree, and placed the squirrel in its nest.  Meantime, the old squirrels in the tree top chattered incessantly.

“Nobody’s going to hurt you,” said Charley, looking upward through the branches.  “We’re only trying to help you.”

When he came to earth once more he examined the snake.  “He’s a big fellow,” he said, stretching the reptile out straight.  “He’s a good deal more than six feet long.  I guess we’ll take his skin and make a belt of it.”

As he drew out his knife again and proceeded to skin the snake, he continued, “I don’t believe in killing snakes as a general rule, but blacksnakes do more harm than good, I believe.  It’s true they kill rats and mice, but they also eat birds’ eggs and young birds and squirrels, and no end of other useful creatures.  And they are so active that one snake will kill a great number in the course of a year.”

“I don’t understand how they can eat anything so big as that young squirrel,” said Lew, “but I know they do.”

“Really they don’t,” laughed Charley.  “They drag themselves outside of their prey.  You know their jaws are loose so they can spread them, and their teeth point backward.  What they do is to work the upper jaw and then the lower, hooking their teeth into their food, pulling back with each half of the jaw in turn.  You see they literally pull themselves over their prey.  Well, I’m glad we got that fellow.  I suppose it’s my business to kill all the blacksnakes I can.  Whatever harms the squirrels, hurts the forest.”