“Well, I guess those squirrels have gone away, Carlo,” the man finally said to his dog. “It is of no use for us to stay here. Come, we will go look for other squirrels to shoot.”
“Bow wow! Bow wow! That will be fun!” barked Carlo. Of course being a dog, he did not know any better.
And so the hunter-man went away from the empty nest, where Slicko and the other squirrels had lived.
All this while Slicko, the jumping squirrel, was hurrying along through the woods, toward the nest of her Aunt Whitey. Slicko’s aunt had that name because there was a white spot on the end of her tail. Mrs. Whitey and Mrs. Squirrel were sisters, and of course that made the squirrel, with the white on the end of her tail, Slicko’s aunt. And Slicko liked Aunt Whitey very much. There were always plenty of nuts in Aunt Whitey’s nest, and Slicko, as well as her brothers and sister, liked to come on a visit. But this time Slicko was all alone.
Pretty soon the little jumping girl squirrel came to the tall tree where Aunt Whitey lived.
“Now I must be very careful,” thought Slicko. “I must wait, before running in, to see if any hunter-men, or dogs, or other enemies are watching me. For if they are, they would see where I go in, and they could find the nest, and maybe catch Aunt Whitey and me.”
Squirrels, like birds and other woodland creatures, do not like human beings to know where their nests or homes are. So they take care to make the front doors in such a way they can not easily be seen, and when the forest creatures go in, they always look around first, to see that no enemy is watching. In that way they keep their homes, or nests, secret. They have to, for they have so many enemies.
Slicko looked all around, and, seeing no dogs, wild animals or hunter-men on the watch, to spy on her aunt’s nest, the little squirrel scrambled up the tree, sticking her sharp toe nails in the soft bark as she had been taught to do.
When Slicko was half way up, she saw a hole in the tree, just such a hole as at her nest at home. This was the front door to the home of her aunt.
Slicko gave two or three taps on the bark with her front paw.