No longer wabbly or vague, as in that first autumn, but fully aroused and dominating was the instinct to gather and bury every precious, separate nut. Bannertail had had to learn slowly and partly by seeing the Redsquirrels making off with the prizes. But he had learned, and his brood had the immediate stimulus of seeing him and their mother at work; and because he was of unusual force, it drove him hard, with an urge that acted like a craze. He worked like mad, seizing, stripping, smelling, appraising, marking, weighing every nut he found.

What, weighing it? Yes, every nut was weighed by the wise harvester. How? By delicate muscular sense. It was held for a moment between the paws, and if it seemed far under weight it was cast aside as worm-eaten, empty, worthless; if big, but merely light in weight, that meant probably a fat worm was within. Then that nut was split open and the worm devoured. A wormy nut was never stored. If the nut was heavy, round, and perfect, the fine balance in the paws and the subtle sense of smell asserted the fact, and then it was owner-marked. How? By turning it round three times in the mouth, in touch with the tongue. This left the personal touch of that Squirrel on it, and would protect it in a measure from being carried off by other Graysquirrels, especially when food abounded. Then, rushing off several hops from the place where the last nut was buried, Bannertail would dig deep in the ground, his full arm's length, ram down the nut held in his teeth; then, pushing back the earth with snout and paws, would tamp that down, replacing the twigs and dry leaves so the nut was safely hidden. Then to the next, varying the exercise by dashing, not after the visiting Graysquirrels—they kept their distance—but after some thieving Chipmunk or those pestiferous Redsquirrels who sought sometimes to unearth his buried treasure. Or, he would dart noisily up the tree, to chase the Bluejays who were trying to rob them of the nuts not yet fallen; then back to earth again, where was his family—Silvergray, Brownhead, and Nyek-nyek—inspired by his example, all doing as he did, working like beavers, seizing, husking, weighing, marking, digging, dig-dig-digging and burying nuts all day long. Hundreds of these little graves they dug, till the ground under every parent tree was a living, crowded burying-ground of the tree's own children. Morning, noon, and evening they worked, as long as there was light enough to see.

A cool night and another drying day brought down another hickory shower. And the Graycoats worked without ceasing. They were tired out that night. They had driven off a score of robbers, they had buried at least a thousand nuts, each in a separate hole. The next day was an even more strenuous time. For seven full days they worked, and then the precious nut harvest was over. Acorns—red and white and yellow—might come later, and some be buried and some not. The Bluejays, Woodpeckers, and the Redsquirrels would get a handsome share, and pile them up in storehouses, a day's gathering in one place, for such is their way, but the hickory-nuts were the precious things that counted for the Bannertail brood. Ten thousand at least had the Graycoats buried, each an arm's length down, and deftly hidden, with the trash of the forest floor replaced.

This undoubtedly was their only impulse, to bury the rich nuts for future use as food. But Nature's plan was larger. There were other foods in the woods at this season. The Squirrels would not need the precious hickories for weeks or months; all sign that might mark the burial-place would be gone. When really driven by need the Squirrels would come and dig up these caches. Memory of the locality first, then their exquisite noses would be their guides. They would find most of the nuts again. But not all. Some would escape the diggers, and what would happen to these? They would grow. Yes, that was Nature's plan. The acorns falling and lying on the ground can burst their thin coats, send down a root and up a shoot at once, but the hickory must be buried or it will dry up before it grows. This is the hickory's age-old compact with the Graysquirrel: You bury my nuts for me, plant my children, and you may have ninety-five per cent of the proceeds for your trouble, so long only as you save the other five per cent and give them a chance to grow up into hickory-trees.

This is the unwritten but binding bargain that is observed each year. And this is the reason why there are hickory-trees wherever there are Graysquirrels. Where the Graycoats have died out the hickory's days are numbered. And foolish man, who slays the Graysquirrel in his reckless lust for killing, is also destroying the precious hickory-trees, whose timber is a mainstay of the nation-feeding agriculture of the world. He is like the fool on a tree o'erhanging the abyss, who saws the very limb on which depends his life.

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