Tommy Fox wanted to see the fun. He had to wait only a minute. For pretty soon the strange dog came rushing down the opposite bank of the river and leaped far out from the edge of the stream.
There was a crash, and a splitting, crackling noise! And the strange dog was floundering in the cold water. The ice was not thick enough to hold him up, and he had hard work to scramble back to the bank again. But he climbed out of the water at last, and tucked his tail between his legs and made off.
Old Mr. Crow saw what happened. He stopped laughing. And he sailed away silently, thinking that Tommy Fox was a pretty smart young cub, after all.
XVIII
THE WORLD TURNS WHITE
After he outwitted the strange dog, Tommy Fox became more of a braggart than ever. He thought that he knew just about all there was to know. But with the coming of winter Tommy found that he had many things to learn. It was almost like living in a different world, for the ground was white everywhere. And though Tommy Fox loved to play in the snow, he discovered one thing about it that he did not like at all. It frightened him when he saw how plainly his footprints showed after a fresh snow-fall. And he wondered how he would ever be able to escape being caught, should any strange dog chase him.
As the winter days passed, Tommy learned that it was very hard for him to run fast in a light, dry snow—that through such snow a dog could run much faster than he could. But when there was a thin crust he could go skipping along like the wind, while dogs, being heavier, broke through the crust and floundered about in the softer snow beneath.
One day Tommy and his mother were out hunting. The snow was very deep everywhere, for it was mid-winter. And it had thawed and frozen so often that the snow was quite hard, except for just about an inch of fresh snow which had fallen during the night. Tommy and his mother could see rabbit tracks all around them; and they had very good luck hunting. But something happened that wasn't exactly lucky. They had turned toward home, when a dog bayed somewhere behind them, and pretty soon Mrs. Fox saw that they were being followed.
She and Tommy started to run. And Tommy saw that there was one more bad thing about winter. Swift River, and all the little brooks, were covered with thick ice and there was no chance at all for him and his mother to run through shallow water and throw the dog off their scent.
It was that strange dog that was chasing them—the one that belonged to Farmer Green's hired man. He was a very fast runner, and in spite of the usual tricks that foxes know, Mrs. Fox and Tommy could not lose him.