“Well, they may relish bark for breakfast,” sighed the Boy, “but I’d as soon have bacon and butter to go with these biscuits. Thank goodness, I put the biscuit tin under a heavy weight last night. I thought I had placed the bacon there, too.”
“You did,” agreed the Ranger, “but not under a heavy enough weight. See, they lifted that hardwood stick right off! You wouldn’t think they had the strength to, but I suppose it’s team work.”
“The brazen things!” howled the Boy, convulsed with mirth, for one rat had just peeked over the edge of the table, filched a half biscuit from his very plate and made off with it, and now sat with a fragment he had broken off eating it as he sat up squirrel-wise holding the biscuit in his paws.
“They really seem more like squirrels than rats,” thought the Boy aloud. He was noticing that instead of the coarse hair and naked tails of the city rat, they had soft gray fur and snowy under sides, with tails almost as thick as a ground squirrel’s.
“They aren’t real rats,” agreed his father, “but mice, in spite of the name. In some places they have taken to nesting in the tree tops, and in some places they burrow. They nest in the branches overhanging swampy places, and burrow in sandy plateaus. But up here in the higher altitudes they either live among the rocks or build tepees of trash.”
“Dad, do they store food for winter?”
“Just like squirrels, and there is one thing they do that is rabbitlike. I’ve seen them drum an alarm on the ground with their heels when they have to send a warning signal a long distance.”
“They’re sure cunning rascals.”
“Altogether too ’cute for me. I wouldn’t mind an occasional half pound of bacon, if only they wouldn’t dig up the pine seeds that I plant in my reforesting nurseries.”
“They are vegetarians, mostly, aren’t they?”