Anton took his old gun quietly from his shoulder, got down on his knees, and crept carefully along. He held the gun by its barrel. With the butt end he could easily enough hit the little squirrel. But the alert creature, which was watching him with keen, anxious eyes, saw him before he had raised the butt end, and with a couple of big leaps, reached a higher branch of the tree.
"What are you going to do to me?" asked the frightened squirrel, poking his little head out. "What is it you really want to do to me?"
"Oh, I should just like to have your tail!" said Anton. "It would be a nice fur collar for me when the autumn storms howl from the mountain tops."
"But I would so much rather keep my tail myself," said the squirrel, raising it as high as he could in the air. "You see I was born with this tail, and therefore it is mine; and so, if you kill me and take it away from me, you are a thief,—a thief,—a real little tail-stealer!"
"You must stop saying such rude words," said Anton, lifting the gun. "If I can only catch you, your tail will be mine."
"No, stop, stop!" shrieked the squirrel, springing about in the branches. "It is horrid and ugly and disgusting of you. I don't want to be crushed with the butt end of a gun. It is ugly of you to think of it, ugly, ugly! And to be broken off in the middle of my nice breakfast to be murdered is truly most unpleasant. Would you like that, little Anton?"
The squirrel still leaped and sprang from branch to branch in fright. Anton laid his gun on the ground.
"Oh, little Anton!" piped the squirrel. "Let me alone! Let me hop around, a happy living squirrel. That is so much better and pleasanter!"
"Well, hop then," said Anton, throwing the gun over his shoulder again. "I am afraid I should dream of the frightened look in your eyes. And now we might see which of us can get to Falkensten first."
"Oh, I shall, I shall!" called the squirrel, wild with joy. "If you are going to Falkensten, I shall go, too. No harm shall happen to you while I am able to hop." With that, the squirrel set off with long leaps from tree to tree, and soon disappeared; and Anton walked on up the mountain.