"Yes," said Peleg, "I have seen the same thing myself. It is like the feeling that Sam Oliver says the otter has for the beaver."
"Or the mink for the ermine," suggested Israel.
"Both mink and ermine bad as they can be," said Henry, shaking his head. "They kill all things not so strong as they."
"Yes," suggested Peleg, "I think the mink and ermine are about the worst animals alive. The mink is three or four times as big as the ermine is and has a good deal more strength——"
"But the ermine so quick," interrupted Henry. "He so quick," he repeated, "and he most bloodthirsty little animal in the forest. When he begin to fight he always fight on until either he is killed or mink is killed."
"Sam Oliver was telling me the last time he was in the settlement," said Peleg, "that last winter he was trailing a fox that was chasing a rabbit, and when Sam came to his trap-line he heard, away off to one side, a mink scream. He says you can hear a mink scream almost a quarter of a mile away. He was trapping minks and he thought he had one caught, so he turned and started for his trap. When he got there he saw, so he said, the biggest fight he ever saw in the woods. A mink was caught in his trap and an ermine was fighting him.
"Pretty quick he saw that instead of there being only one there were two of the ermine. They kept walking around the mink in a circle and kept going faster and faster until by and by one of them, quick as lightning, right in front of the mink, jumped for him, and almost at the same time the other ermine jumped in, too, and tried to get a grip on the mink's neck. They must have tried that same thing before, because this time he heard the mink scream, too, though he was doing something besides. For about half a minute Sam said he couldn't hear or see much of anything except the fracas. Then just about as swiftly as the two ermine had jumped into the fight, they jumped out and began to circle around the mink again. The next time they tried to get the neck hold only one of them slipped back. The other got his teeth fastened right where he wanted them, and you know they are like needles. Then the other ermine came back and he, too, got a throat hold. In just a few minutes the whole affair was ended and the ermine came out ahead. Sam said he could have walked up to them and picked them up, they were so excited, squeaking like mice, and trying to tear the dead mink all to pieces."
"Sam got the two ermine then, didn't he?" inquired Israel.
"Yes. I told him, though, I thought they had earned their right to live, but Sam never feels that way about such things."
The reference to Sam Oliver had brought a scowl to the face of Henry and caused him to become silent as long as the hunter was a topic of conversation.