"Then we shall dine with you; so make haste and get something good for us," said Nimble-foot. "I have no doubt you have plenty of butter and hickory-nuts laid up in your holes."
The old chitmunk told him he might come and get them, if he could.
At this the gray squirrels skipped down from the branches, and began to run hither and thither, and to scratch among the moss and leaves, to find the entrance to the chitmunks' grain stores. They peeped under the old twisted roots of the pines and cedars, into every chink and cranny, but no sign of a granary was to be seen.
[Illustration: THE GRAY SQUIRREL AND THE CHITMUNKS.]
Then the chitmunks said, "My dear friends, this is a bad season to visit us; we are very poor just now, finding it difficult to get a few dry pine-kernels and berries; but if you will come and see us after harvest, we shall have a store of nuts and acorns."
"Pretty fellows you are!" replied Nimble, "to put us off with promises, when we are so hungry; we might starve between this and harvest."
"If you leave this island, and go down the lake, you will come to a mill, where the red squirrels live, and where you will have fine times," said one of the chitmunks.
"Which is the nearest way to the mill?" asked Velvet-paw.
"Swim to the shore, and keep the Indian path, and you will soon see it."
But while the gray squirrels were looking out for the path, the cunning chitmunks whisked away into their holes, and left the inquirers in the lurch, who could not tell what had become of them; for though they did find a round hole that they thought might be one of their burrows, it was so narrow that they could only poke in their noses, but could get no further—the gray squirrels being much fatter and bigger than the slim little chitmunks.