CHAPTER V.—A SON OF THE WILD.
Now Frisky, the Red Fox Pup, admired no one so much as he did his father. And he had heard his father tell how he had chased the doe and her fawns that dreadful day when Fleet Foot broke her leg.
Not that the little rascal really wanted to hurt those gentle soft-eyed babies. He wasn’t hungry, and besides, he couldn’t have killed them had he wanted to. He just thought it would be fun to play that he was Father Red Fox and give them a good scare. (But how were the fawns to know that?) In other words, like a great many very young persons, he didn’t stop to think of the other fellow’s point of view in the matter.
Thus, no sooner had he seen Fleet Foot headed in the other direction, leaving the fawns unprotected, than he pranced merrily up to them, his yellow eyes gleaming with mischief.
“Yip, yip!” he yelled at them in his high-pitched little voice.
Now the fawns had been told to lie still. But how could they, when danger was almost upon them? They were certainly not going to lie there and let this little wild dog bite them!
With a bleat of alarm they sprang to their feet and raced through the brush, leaping over bush and brier and boulder as if their very lives depended on it.
But Frisky Fox could also leap bush and brier and boulder. And he came leaping after, just two jumps behind them!
Now around a clump of greenbriar, down a trail of dainty pointed hoof prints that led through brush head high,—up hill, down hill the trio sped, startling the pheasants and sending them into the air with a whirr.
Here the trail turned abruptly down the side of a precipice, and the fawns followed, while Frisky, having paused for a moment when his tail got caught in a bramble, had to come trotting after with his nose to the ground, as he could no longer see them.
Now the fawns had never been taught that water carries no scent. They just happened to go splashing across a bit of a frog pond that lay cupped among hillocks of seedling pines. But looking back at every seventh leap or so, they could see that the fox pup followed his nose to the water’s edge, and there stopped and sniffed all about uncertainly, before again catching a glimpse of them.
But though the chase went merrily on (that is, merrily on the fox’s part), the fawns had learned a valuable lesson.
They now made straight for Lone Lake, and my! You should have seen the ducks take flight as these two alarming little fellows came splashing in among them!
A deer, when pursued by hounds, will always take to water when he can, and the hounds have no scent to follow. Then, unless there is a hunter along, and he catches sight of his quarry, and fires, the deer are safe.
The Red Fox Pup uses his eyes, as well as his nose, and he was so close behind, and understood so well this trick of taking to water, (for he escaped the hounds that way himself), that he wasn’t fooled the least little bit in the world. Not he!
Only once they had taken the plunge, the little fellows decided to swim out to a reedy islet where they could rest. And the fox pup didn’t think it worth while to get his fur wet. For when his great brush of a tail gets wet, it is so heavy that it weighs him down, and he can’t run nearly so fast, so the mice all get away.
Of course the fawns thought it was all their own cleverness, and you should have heard them telling Fleet Foot about it when she found them there!
The fawns never tired of watching the life that stirred everywhere about them, their great soft eyes filled with pleasant wonder.
One day it would be the one soft cluck of Mother Grouse Hen, calling to her chicks to hide before Frisky Fox should pass that way.
When he had passed, looking so wise and knowing, (with his bright eyes peering into every nook and corner, and his pointed little nose testing the air for a taint), Mother Grouse Hen would give a different sort of cluck; and back the frightened chicks would come to her, and she would gather them comfortingly under her wings, pressing each wee brown baby to her down-covered breast to reassure him.
Then she would utter a soft, brooding cluck that told them how she loved them, and how safe they were with Mother to look out for them.
————
