Now Fuzzy had a real grievance, for always before, anything the children had in their pockets to eat was for him. Now Chuck and Chipper searched them first. Fuzzy was more eager than ever to catch the impudent rascals.
CHAPTER XIV
THE CACHE
CHUCK and Chipper were mighty busy chipmunks, filling their cache,—to use the Western term that rhymes with to-day, meaning a hiding-place for food supplies.
The season was short, here in the high Sierras. Ordinarily it snowed as late as May, and as early as October. By the last of August one expected frost to tint the mountain sides. Day followed perfect, sunny day, and night succeeded cool, star-strewn night without a hint of rain; but Chuck and Chipper knew that before the moon was full again, the snow would be silvering the pine trees,—promise of the fifteen-foot drifts to come.
They must have enough in their cache to live on till spring.
Chipmunks do not hibernate in the way that bears do. They sleep a good deal, but they do not go into an all-winter sleep, and when they wake, there in their caves away under-ground where the cold cannot reach them, they must eat.
Everywhere among the brush and fallen timber and along the rock ledges they searched for food to store away for winter. Racing briskly forth each morning, as soon as the sun began to slant warmingly through the fir trees, Chuck and Chipper vied with each other to see which could harvest the most nuts. And Fuzzy-Wuzz vied with both to see if he could catch them.
Always they were too alert for him. Their black, beady eyes would spy him out, no matter how softly he came padding along, and then they would climb into the top of some bush he could not climb and scold him and mock at him with their bird-like chirp.
Wild gooseberries were one of their favorite foods,—as they were the little bear’s, for they could bite off the prickers, and Fuzzy didn’t mind them.