They also collected thistle seed in their cheek pockets, to say nothing of thimble berries, dogwood seed, and other seeds and berries. But where Fuzzy envied them was when it came to pine nuts. Every pine cone, from the yellow pine that grew so tall, to the dwarfed nut pine that the Indians love, is full of seeds. But the cones are also covered with sharp thorns, and so long as the cones were green, the nuts were safe from the little bear. He would have to wait till they turned brown and opened of their own accord.
But Chuck and Chipper had no such trouble. They could nibble the cone apart and get at the sweet kernels as easily as anything. Fuzzy used to watch them enviously. Then an idea came to him. He watched narrowly as the chipmunks filled their cheeks and scuttled away to their under-ground store-rooms.
Sniffing and snuffing this way and that, along the way they had gone, his wonderful nose finally told him just where their cache was located. Digging down about three feet, he scratched the roof off it while Chipper chucked wrathfully and Chuck chippered in his fright.
What a find for the bear cub! Fully a peck of the delicious pine nuts lay before him,—and how he did feast! How his little black eyes twinkled at thought that he had outwitted the impudent things!
But for Chuck and Chipper it meant that half their harvest work was gone for nothing, and winter now too near for them to gather more. Then Chipper had a big idea.
CHAPTER XV
THE PINE NUTS
“IT is the queerest thing!” exclaimed the Ranger’s wife, “what can have become of those pine nuts I was saving for Christmas. I had fully a peck in that basket on the top shelf.” She looked doubtfully at Fuzzy-Wuzz.
“The cub never could have done it,” the Ranger said. “If he had climbed up there, he would have knocked down a lot of stuff.”
“No, but what can have become of the nuts? There isn’t a sign of mice, either. And we never have a human thief, away up here in the mountains. Besides, what a funny thing it would be for a thief just to take the pine nuts and nothing else.”