Red Fox

It happened that the tall backwoodsman had a fancy for good fowls. He had several times sent away for settings of thoroughbred eggs; and having had good luck with them, he had now a very handsome and unusual flock to brag of. To be sure, Buff Cochins and Plymouth Rocks and White Leghorns and Black Minorcas all ran together, and the free mixture of breeds wrought strangely diversified results. But it was a great flock, for all its commingling, and accomplished wonders of egg-laying; and Jabe Smith took pride in having it well housed. The fowl-house was simple, but quite up to date in its pattern, which had been carefully copied from cuts in the Colonial Farmer. At each end of the long sunny front was a little entrance cut for the use of the “biddies,” and closed at night by a sliding drop door.

“Here, Jabe,” said the Boy, kicking one of these little doors with his toe, “is your trap!”

A gleam of instant comprehension flashed into the woodsman’s eyes, but he maintained a strategic silence.

“And yonder,” continued the speaker, with a wave of his hand toward the scattered flock, feeding, or scratching, or dusting feathers in the sun, – “is your bait.”

“How’s the bait goin’ to like it?” asked Jabe.

“Oh, the bait’s not going to mind!” said the Boy, cheerfully. “You just wait and see!”

The problem now was a simple one. The Boy knew that Red Fox had explored the premises thoroughly by night, outside, and would undoubtedly have explored them inside as well but for the fact that nightfall found the doors all closed. He argued that the shrewd animal was expecting to sometime find a door left open by mistake. Now was the time for that mistake to occur. In its simplicity and effectiveness the Boy’s plan commanded the backwoodsman’s instant acceptance.

Knocking together a little platform of light boards about three feet square, the Boy laid it on the floor just inside one of the small doors. From it he ran a cord up each side of the door, over two nails at the top, and joined them in the centre. Here he rigged a sensitive trigger catch connecting with the loop that held up the sliding door. The edge of the platform he raised about an inch from the floor, attaching it to the trigger in such a way that the slightest additional weight would spring the catch and let the door drop down. This accomplished, with the skilful aid of Jabe Smith and his tools, the Boy placed some tiny blocks under the platform to brace it up and prevent it being sprung prematurely by the hens as they passed out and in.

“Now, Jabe,” said the proud strategist as the two stood off and eyed their handiwork, “all you’ve got to do is wait till all the hens have gone to roost. Then shut the other door, and take out the props from under the platform. When Red Fox comes, as he’s likely to do just about moonrise, he’ll be much pleased to find that for once his enemy has forgotten and left a door open. He’ll slip right in to see what the hen-house is like inside. The door will drop, – and then you have him!”

“But what about the hens?” queried their owner, doubtfully.

“When he finds he’s caught, he won’t be bothering about hens!” laughed the Boy. Now that he was fairly committed to the venture, the natural, primitive boy within him, which is always something of a wild animal, was beginning to wake up and assert itself. He was growing keen for the event.

That evening the Boy stayed at Jabe Smith’s farm for supper. After sundown, when the chickens were all at roost, and high in the pale greenish sky the latest crows were winging homeward to the spruce groves, the trap was set and the other door of the hen-house securely closed. Then in a hay-loft opposite, behind the big open window through which the hay was pitched, the Boy and Jabe hid themselves comfortably where they could command a perfect view of whatever might happen. Slowly the light faded out over the farmyard, and the roofs, and the spiky tree-tops along the ridges of the hills. With the cool-smelling twilight came a sort of expectant silence, a hush that seemed to listen consciously; and the two hidden in the hay-loft spoke only in a whisper. Up from the stanchions below the loft came startlingly loud the munching of the cattle’s jaws on the dry hay and the occasional windy sighs which their great flanks heaved forth from time to time. When a mouse rustled the hay softly at the other side of the loft, the sound seemed abrupt and conspicuous. Then, at last, a change came over the quality of the shadows in the yard below. They grew more liquid and transparent. A silvery glow caught the tree-tops along the opposite ridge, crept down, and bathed the rich fir masses of the woods in wonder. Then the roof of the hen-house turned silver, and a mysterious, transfiguring illumination seemed to tip down into the yard, making lovely, spectral things of the sawhorse, and the well-sweep, and the cart. Both Jabe and the Boy watched the transformation with wordless delight. The moon was floating up behind the barn.

The radiance had no more than fairly occupied the farmyard, when a shadowy shape came flitting soundlessly around the corner of the hen-house. From the crack in the boarding behind Red Fox had seen that one of the little doors was open. His opportunity – not necessarily to kill chickens, but to explore the inside of the chicken-house – had come at last. He peered in cautiously. There were all the fowls on their perches, sleeping soundly. There was no game-cock among them. He knew these tall, handsome Cochins and Minorcas, haughty but not dangerous. He darted confidently through the opening. The next moment the door dropped, with a sharp rap, behind him, catching and pinching smartly the tip of his beautiful brush.

Like lightning he wheeled about, jerking his tail free. But the door fitted securely in its grooves, so that his furiously scratching claws and desperate teeth could not budge it. In a silent frenzy he darted to the other door. It, too, refused to budge. Then he jumped up, scramblingly, toward the window, snubbing his nose against the glass and the sashes. But there was no way out. He stopped, crouched down close beside the treacherous door, and set his shrewd wits working desperately.

The hens, meanwhile, aroused by the dropping of the door, and greatly excited by the prisoner’s antics, had set up a wild commotion of squawking and cackling. The cocks were particularly noisy; but unlike the valorous game, they made no move to come down and give battle to the intruder. Their outcry, however, was by no means ineffectual. At the first sound of it the two hiders in the loft swung themselves down, and rushed eagerly to the hen-house.

The main door of the hen-house was at one end. The Boy opened it cautiously, keeping his feet and legs in the opening, while Jabe Smith peered over his head. What they saw brought an exclamation of astonishment from Jabe, and a knowing laugh from the Boy. There on the floor, half in moonlight and half in shadow, lay the great fox, stretched out lifeless in front of the perches, with the cackling fowls all craning long necks down to look at him. The two conspirators stepped inside and shut the door behind them. And the hens moderated their clamour, satisfied that help had come.

The Boy, smiling wisely, waited. But Jabe, after stirring the long, limp body with his toe, picked it up by the tail and examined it critically.

“I swan!” he exclaimed at length, in the voice which one accredits a miracle. “If he hain’t gone an’ fell an’ plumb broke his neck!”

“Well,” said the Boy, taking from his pocket the small dog-collar and chain which Jabe had lent him, “I guess I’ll take no risks.” And he proceeded to affix the chain and collar. Then he tied the animal’s slack, unresisting legs together with a stout cord.

Jabe jeered at him in a dry drawl, but the Boy kept his counsel.

“You never can tell, Jabe!” said he, enigmatically. “Red Fox dead is cleverer than most other beasts alive, and something might happen on the way home. He might mend this broken neck of his, you know, suddenly, – and then – whizz! – and no more Red Fox!”

“If that ’ere beast ain’t a dead one,” averred the backwoodsman, “I’ll eat my old shoe-packs.”

“Don’t undertake too much, Jabe,” mocked the Boy. “You may need those shoe-packs, with winter coming on! If you’ll just give me an old oat-sack, now, to wrap this unfortunate victim in, I’ll start for home ’fore it gets any later. And maybe if you’ll come ’round to-morrow morning you’ll find Red Fox holding a soirée in our back yard!”

“Reckon I’ll go along with you now,” said Jabe. “The beast’s too queer to let you go alone with him.”

CHAPTER XVII.

UNDER ALIEN SKIES

Securely wrapped up in the oat-sack, with just the black tip of his nose sticking out, Red Fox showed never a sign of life during that interminable journey to the home of the Boy. Tucked under the Boy’s sturdy young arm he endured the painful grip with unwavering heroism, and never stiffened or twitched a muscle. But if the elated victors had taken it into their heads to peer suddenly into the end of the roll of sacking, past the black nose-tip, they would have caught a shrewd and watchful eye wide open. The captive was not going to lose any point unnecessarily; and peering out into the flooding moonlight he marked well where his captors were carrying him. Bitterness was in his heart as he watched the silvered trees and fields and fences go by, – bitterness, and humiliation, and rage, and fear, but by no manner of means despair. Helpless as he was for the moment, he knew that he could not be carried in that way for ever. There must come some change. He was full of devices. And he had no idea of counting the great game lost.

When the Boy had unrolled him, and chained him to a staple in the corner of a spacious box-stall in the barn, and undone the bonds that fettered his legs, Red Fox still lay limp, so utterly slack in every sinew that the backwoodsman was more than ever assured that he was dead. To all jibes, however, the Boy answered, merely, “Come back in the morning and see!” And soon, after having wearied of admiring the rich fur and congratulating themselves on their speedy triumph, the victors went away, fastening the barn door behind them.

From a small window the moonlight came pouring in, lighting the centre of the stall brilliantly and leaving the corners in deep shadow. The moment he knew he was alone the limp shape on the floor awoke to eager life, with a sharp leap that tested the soundness of the chain. Red Fox felt himself violently jerked backwards and thrown off his feet, which sufficed to convince him that the chain was strong. Having assured himself as to its strength, and also as to its length (which was about six feet), he now began to test it minutely with nose and teeth, holding it down between his fore paws and going over every link right up to the staple in the wall. Finding no flaw or weakness anywhere in the cold steel which hurt his teeth, he next set himself to the task of pulling the collar over his head. Backing away he strained and tugged with all his mind, but only succeeded in choking himself till his eyes and tongue stuck out. Upon this a memory of the great lynx strangling in the snare came over him, and he stopped abruptly, panting and gasping. As soon as he had recovered from this touch of panic and fully regained his breath, he was seized with a new idea. In the corner of the stall was a heap of chaff and fine straw with a wisp or two of hay. In this he carefully buried a slack section of the chain; and when the work was done he crept away furtively, trusting to leave his obstinate tormentor behind. But when he saw the snaky thing emerge inexorably from its hiding, and felt it once more tug peremptorily at his neck, he seemed to realize the folly of his choice. For a few minutes he sat up on his haunches, and pondered. Then, seeing that for the time there was nothing else to be done, he curled himself up in a corner and resolutely went to sleep.

When, somewhat early in the morning, the Boy came to the stall with a dish of water and a tempting piece of ruddy fresh meat, Red Fox gave him one long look of implacable disdain, retreated with dignity to his corner, and ignored the visit resolutely. He was hungry, and very thirsty; but in the visitor’s hated presence he scorned to show either of these needs. When the Boy approached him too closely he would show his white teeth, and a deep, lambent green colour would come into his eyes, almost opaque and seeming like a film drawn over the whole iris. This was a signal meaning “keep off!” and the Boy, understanding it very well, obeyed. As soon as he was gone, Red Fox lapped up the water greedily, and fell upon the raw beef. He had no intention of starving himself, but he was not going to give the Boy the satisfaction of watching him eat.

And now began for the unhappy captive four weeks of monotonous vain longing. Twice a day, in the early morning and in the first of the twilight, he would go through his efforts to escape, testing the chain link by link, and then hopefully burying it in the chaff. Only the attempt to pull the collar over his head he never repeated, so great was his horror of strangling. Meanwhile the Boy was unremitting in his efforts to win the confidence of the splendid captive. Dainties to eat, fresh water twice a day, gentle conversation, quiet, gradual advances, all were faithfully and discreetly tried, but all in vain. At the end of the month the scorn in Red Fox’s eyes was as clear and uncompromising as ever, his glare as greenly menacing and his teeth as implacably displayed, whenever his gaoler came too near. Then, reluctantly, but on his father’s advice, the Boy made up his mind that the tameless captive must be sold.

About this time – for the fame of Red Fox and the story of his capture had spread far beyond the Ringwaak neighbourhoods – a well-dressed stranger appeared at the settlement and asked to see the illustrious fox. The Boy proudly did the honours, and with regret acknowledged his failure to tame the beautiful and sagacious beast. The visitor presently made an offer to buy.

“What do you want him for?” asked the Boy, doubtfully.

The stranger eyed him with care before replying, and understood something of his attitude.

“To sell to some big zoological gardens,” he replied, easily, “where he’ll be thoroughly appreciated.”

Much relieved, the Boy agreed at once, and pocketed a price beyond his wildest hopes. Had he known, however, the purchaser’s real purpose, he would have rejected any price with indignation, and even counted upon Jabe Smith’s backing in the matter. Red Fox was destined, not for a brilliant “zoo,” where he would be a prisoner, indeed, but pampered and admired, but for the depleted coverts of a Hunt Club in one of the great States farther south, where his strength and cunning might be expected to give phenomenal sport before the hounds should finally tear him to pieces. The backwoodsman as well as the Boy had a kind of primitive horror of the formal sport of fox-hunting, which seemed to them a regulated and long-drawn cruelty. It is probable, however, that if they had consulted the wishes of Red Fox himself, that self-confident and indomitable animal would have elected to go with the stranger, choosing the alien coverts with all their loud and appalling perils rather than the hopeless security of the “zoo.”

As it was, however, every one was pleased. The Boy and Jabe had their money; and Red Fox, in his openwork, strong-barred crate, was glad of any change that meant getting away from the gloomy box-stall in the barn. Where there was change there might come opportunity; and at least he was once more moving in the moving sun and air.

The journey from Ringwaak settlements to the nearest railway station was some fifteen miles of rough going in an open express wagon which carried the mails. The crate containing Red Fox and his misfortunes was lashed securely on the top of some heavy boxes, so he could command a view of the bright-coloured, russet and crimson world which he was leaving. Curled up on the bottom of the crate, his watchful eyes stared forth intelligently through the bars, missing nothing, but revealing nothing of the emotions astir behind their clear depths. For a little while the road led through familiar woods and fields. Then these grew strange, but the rampiked, ridgy summit of old Ringwaak, his landmark all his life, remained in view. Then the wagon topped a range of steep uplands and dipped into the rugged wilderness valley of the Ottanoonsis, and Ringwaak was hidden from view. Now, for the first time, Red Fox felt himself an alien and an exile utterly. As the granite rocks, and scraggy white birches, and black patches of hemlock, and naked, bleak, dead trunks closed in about the narrow road, the captive felt for the first time that the old range, and the den on the hillside, and his slim red mate, were lost. For a time his faith in his own wits failed him, and he sank his nose between his paws in despair.

After what seemed to the captive, and hardly less to the well-dressed stranger on the seat beside the driver, an interminable age of jolting, the lonely little backwoods station, a mere red-washed shanty, with a tall water-tank near by, was reached. Here the stranger gave Red Fox a drink, and a liberal chunk of fresh meat to amuse himself with, but made no attempt to cultivate his good-will. Unlike the Boy, he had no wish to conciliate or subdue the captive’s wildness. At last, after an hour’s wait, the train came roaring and clattering down the rails; and Red Fox, in his crate on the platform, shrank back against the bars with starting eyeballs, imagining that the end of all things had come upon the world. When the loud monster had passed him and come to a stop, and he found himself still alive, he was trembling so that he could scarcely stand up; and it seemed a matter of small importance when his crate was thrust into what was evidently a part of the monster, and he was whirled away with sickening motion and bewildering tumult. Not till he had been travelling for nearly a day could he bring himself to eat or drink. Then, little by little, seeing that men lived and were content about him, seeming to have no dread whatever of the monster, he recovered his equanimity and resumed his wonted courage. The process, however, took him another good twenty-four hours, and then, just as he was finding himself master of the situation, the train came to a long stop, and his crate was lifted from the car. Once more he was put into a wagon, and taken for a drive, – first through a wilderness of crowding houses set thick together like trees, then through a pleasant country of gardens diffusing into farms, and at last into a rougher region of pasture fields, and swamps, and thick-wooded knolls. Presently the wagon stopped in front of a low, wide-winged, imposing red structure, where men lounged on the spacious porch, and saddled horses stood before the steps. Here the crate was lifted down, and the stranger began enthusiastically pointing out Red Fox’s beauties and distinctions to a knot of men who had come forward to inspect the heralded prize. Their admiration was unstinted.

“If he’s got bottom to match his beauty,” said one, “he’ll give us the neatest run the ‘Merrybrooks’ have ever had.”

“Look at that cool and cunning eye!” said another. “He’s got brains. He’ll give us more than one run, I’m thinking, before that mighty brush hangs on the wall!”

“I could find it in my heart to wish he might fool us altogether!” cried a third. But this foolishly amiable sentiment aroused such a chorus of protest that he hastened to add: “I mean, of course, that it would be a great thing for our strain of foxes, and therefore for the club, and therefore for sport in general, if this husky Kanuck could have a fair chance to disseminate his breed.”

The suggestion caught several supporters, who proposed that Red Fox should be kept for breeding; but there being a great meet planned for the following Tuesday, just four days ahead, the majority were determined to let the future take care of itself. The last run of the Merrybrook hounds had been something of a fizzle, and now they were not sure there was a fox left in their coverts. They wanted one good run, anyway; and plainly this was the beast to give it to them.

In the middle of the lawn before the club-house the crate was set on its side and the cover removed. On the very instant, as if shot out by a spring, Red Fox leaped forth. Straight before him was a stretch of smooth meadow, leading to a grove of maples and chestnuts. But on the way up the road, on the other side of the club-house, Red Fox had noted a stretch of wild land, wooded and brushy. In the too obvious path to freedom he suspected a snare. The moment his feet touched solid earth he doubled straight back toward the spectators, darted fairly between the legs of one, under the belly of the nearest horse, behind a massive clump of rhododendrons across the road, – and vanished before any one had time to more than look around.

The stranger, who had brought Red Fox so far, glowed with pride.

“Did you ever see such speed?” cried one.

“And such nerve?” cried another.

“He’s all right, Mack!” exclaimed several at once.

“If he has any sort of luck,” remarked his first champion, dryly, “our breed of foxes may get improved, after all!”

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE BELL-MOUTHED PACK

The new land in which Red Fox now found himself established was greatly to his taste, and his blood ran wildly in the sweetness of recovered freedom. He had little time to pine for his grimmer north and the vast woods of Ringwaak. Here were dense coverts, patches of swamp, long, though narrow, stretches of woodland wherein a kind of stiff, primly upright cedar took the place of his well-loved spruce and fir, bright green meadows enclosed with stone walls, and rocky, neglected pastures with snake fences that reminded him of home. Here and there a steep, rocky knoll, set thick with trees which were many of them unfamiliar to him, arose out of the levels; and here and there a much-meandering brook, narrow but deepish, spread out into a pond which suggested to him a plenitude of wild ducks. From a rock on the crest of the highest knoll he saw that this pleasant new range of his was almost completely surrounded by settlements and smoky villages; but beyond these, to the north and west, ran a purple barrier of mountains, as wild-looking as his own Ringwaak. He had half a mind to set out for these mountains at once, not quite liking the girdle of civilization which he saw drawn about him. But that was only a passing whim. He had no other fault to find with his present domain. Game was abundant, and the more he explored these diversified coverts the more content with them he became. Before he had been three days in possession he knew them thoroughly. There seemed to be no active enemies about, and the men whom he saw lounging on the club-house porches, on the outskirts of his domain, appeared unlikely to give him any annoyance.

On the morning of the fourth day, however, he was surprised to note a great bustle and stir before the club-house. From the top of his knoll he wondered at the scarlet-coated riders who were gathering quickly, with here and there among them a slenderer, dark figure, which seemed to stick mysteriously upon one side of her horse. His interest, however, turned speedily to apprehension when he saw a pack of dogs, perhaps ten or twelve in number (he did not know how to count), coming up over a rise beyond the club-house. These dogs looked very much like the tan-coloured half-breed at the settlement, whom he had so often outwitted and outrun. He understood now certain ominous, baying voices, which he had heard several times in the distance; and he realized in a second that now was an old game about to be played in a new way. He himself it was, and none other, that all this fuss was about. There was so much of it; and the colour looked so impressive. For a moment his heart sank, and his brush dropped. Then confidence returned. He sat up with sprightly cocked ears and head to one side as was his ancient custom, and eyed with shrewd semi-disdain the elaborate preparations which were being made against him. Then he slipped down from his watch-tower and betook himself to the centre of the most difficult patch of swamp.

There was one thing, however, which Red Fox, shrewd as he was, did not realize; and that was that the master of the hounds knew a lot about foxes. He knew that that rock on the top of the knoll was just the sort of place which a strange fox, if a cunning one, would be likely to choose as a lookout when anything unusual was afoot. He led the way thither, therefore, and put the pack straight at it, rather expecting an immediate find. The steaming scent, of course, was picked up almost at once; and away went the splendid pack in loud chorus, heads up and sterns down, taking the scent in the air, straight for the swamp, and the whole field following.