Frosty remained in the sycamore's crotch. Though he had considered himself very alert, he'd had no slight inkling of the coyote's presence until it was almost too late. Concentrating on the gray squirrel, he had given little thought to the fact that something might be stalking him. Never again must he be so lax—but he had learned.
Had he been beneath the root, very probably the coyote might have dug him out. But, as had just been proven, the coyote was unable to climb trees. It followed, therefore, that a tree would be a much safer place in which to rest. Frosty cleaned his fur, and when one of the gray squirrels appeared in the higher branches of the same tree, he looked at it with challenging interest. But the squirrel fled in panic-stricken terror when it saw the kitten.
Frosty stayed in his perch until just before nightfall, then descended to hunt again. But the grasshoppers, that had been so easy to catch when numbed by early morning cold, were amazingly agile now. The kitten stalked one that was crawling up a blade of grass. Escaping from between his clutching claws, the insect spread bright-colored wings and flew away. Frosty marked it down, but when he went to the place where it had descended, it was not there. Alighting, the grasshopper had crawled along the ground. Presently, four feet to one side, it spread gaudy wings and took flight once more.
Again Frosty marked it down and again failed to find it. Crawling beneath a dead weed that matched its drab color exactly, the grasshopper was remaining perfectly still.
An hour's hard hunting brought the black kitten one grasshopper, a vast frustration and a mounting hunger. Then twilight crept stealthily over the hills and the grasshoppers settled down in various places where they would pass the hours of darkness. Because they did not move at all and were almost perfectly camouflaged when holding still, and because it was dark, Frosty could not see them.
He pounced eagerly when a mouse rustled in front of him. But since he did not know how to hunt mice—the only ones he'd caught were those that fled in terror from the feeding deer—he missed. He ambled disconsolately down to the cold little stream that wandered through the meadow.
He was hungry and growing hungrier, but he had not forgotten the earlier lesson of the day when, because he'd given all his attention to the gray squirrel in the sycamores, the coyote had almost caught him. Though he was principally interested in getting anything at all to eat, he did not neglect that which lay about him. When he came near the stream, he knew that something else was already there. He stalked cautiously forward until he could see what it was.
A mink crouched on the stream bank, busily eating a fourteen-inch trout that it had surprised in the shallows. Sure of its own powers, fearing nothing, the mink gave no attention to anything save the meal it had caught. Finished, it licked its chops and turned to stare at the tall grass in which Frosty lay.
The mink knew and had known since the kitten came that Frosty was there, for its nose had told it. A bloody little creature, ordinarily it might have amused itself by killing the kitten. But a full belly can make even a mink feel good, and after a moment, it turned to travel downstream.
Frosty stole forward to find the trout's tail, head and fins. The epicurean mink had chosen only the choice portions and left this carrion for any scavenger that might come. But it was good and it dulled Frosty's hunger. His meal ended, he washed up, then and went back into the meadow.