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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.