Spite The Marten And Pekan The Fisher
"The two remaining members of the Weasel family none of you have ever seen," began Old Mother Nature, when she opened school at the old meeting place in the Green Forest the morning after their visit to the Smiling Pool. "You have never seen them because they live in the deep forests of the Far North. But were you living up there, you would know them, and the dread of them would seldom be out of your mind. One is called Spite the Marten and the other Pekan the Fisher.

"Spite the Marten is also called the Pine Marten and the American Sable, and he is one of the handsomest members of the Weasel family. Shadow the Weasel can climb, but he spends most of his time on the ground. Jimmy Skunk and Digger the Badger are not climbers at all. Little Joe Otter spends most of his time in the water. But Spite the Marten is a lover of the tree tops, and is quite as much at home there as Chatterer the Red Squirrel.

"When he is moving about in the trees, he looks much like a very large Squirrel, while on the ground he might be mistaken for a young Fox. His coat is a rich, dark, yellowish-brown, becoming almost black on the tail and legs. His throat usually is yellow, though sometimes it is almost white. The sides of his face are grayish, and his good-sized ears are grayish-white on the inside. His tail is about half as long as his body and is covered with long hair, but isn't bushy like a Squirrel's. While his general shape is that of Shadow the Weasel, his body is much heavier in proportion to his size.